LUTZ, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Cositas Ricas Bar and Grill at 1943 Foggy Ridge Pkwy and found a restaurant serving raw or undercooked foods to customers with no consumer advisory posted, no shellfish traceability records on hand, and no documented procedures for parasite destruction in fish. They cited seven high-severity violations and one intermediate violation. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The April 2 inspection turned up three violations tied directly to the restaurant's raw and undercooked food offerings. Inspectors cited the restaurant for having no consumer advisory, meaning customers had no way of knowing which menu items carried elevated risk. Shellfish identification records were inadequate, so there was no paper trail to trace where oysters, clams, or mussels came from. Parasite destruction procedures for fish were not being followed.
Those three violations compound each other. A customer eating raw shellfish or undercooked fish at Cositas Ricas in April had no warning on the menu, no assurance the shellfish came from a certified source, and no guarantee the fish had been handled to kill parasites.
The illness-reporting failures were just as direct. Inspectors found no written employee health policy and documented that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness. Both are high-severity citations.
There was also no person in charge present or performing managerial duties during the inspection. Inspectors additionally cited improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning employees were going through the motions of handwashing without the technique required to actually remove pathogens. Multi-use utensils were not being properly cleaned, the single intermediate violation on the report.
What These Violations Mean
The consumer advisory and shellfish traceability failures matter most to the customers least able to protect themselves. Elderly diners, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems face the highest risk from raw shellfish and undercooked fish. Without a posted advisory, none of those customers had the information needed to make a different choice.
The shellfish traceability gap is a separate problem. When shellfish arrives without proper identification tags and records, there is no way to trace an illness back to a specific harvest location or supplier if someone gets sick. Shellfish are filter feeders that concentrate bacteria and viruses from surrounding water. The tags exist precisely because outbreaks have to be traceable.
The parasite destruction failure compounds the fish risk. Certain parasites in fish, including Anisakis and tapeworm species, survive light cooking. Proper freezing protocols before service are the standard control. At Cositas Ricas in April, inspectors found those protocols were not being followed.
The illness-reporting violations are the most direct transmission risk in the building. A food worker who does not know they are required to report symptoms, working at a facility with no written health policy, is the scenario behind the majority of multi-victim foodborne illness outbreaks. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States annually, spreads most efficiently through infected food workers. At Cositas Ricas, both the policy and the reporting were absent.
The Longer Record
The April 2 inspection was not the first time Cositas Ricas had serious problems documented by state inspectors. The restaurant has four inspections on record and 24 total violations across those visits.
The inspection immediately before April 2 came on August 14, 2025, when inspectors cited six high-severity and four intermediate violations. That is the second-highest single-visit high-severity count in the facility's record, topped only by the April 2026 visit.
The August 14 inspection was followed by a return visit the very next day, August 15, 2025, which turned up one high-severity and two intermediate violations, suggesting some issues were addressed overnight. A follow-up to the April 2 inspection came on April 7, 2026, showing one high-severity violation remaining.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed. But the pattern across four inspections is one of recurring high-severity citations, not isolated incidents. The August 2025 cluster and the April 2026 cluster are separated by roughly seven months, and both produced significant high-severity counts.
The Facility Remained Open
After documenting seven high-severity violations on April 2, including the absence of a consumer advisory for raw foods, no shellfish traceability records, unverified parasite destruction procedures, no employee health policy, employees not reporting illness symptoms, improper handwashing technique, and no person in charge, inspectors did not order Cositas Ricas closed.
The restaurant served customers that day, and the days that followed, until a follow-up inspection five days later found one high-severity violation still on the books.
