WEIRSDALE, FL. A state inspector walked into County Line Smokehouse on South US Highway 25 on September 1, 2026, and found food not cooked to its required minimum temperature, a violation that means pathogens like Salmonella can survive in the meat and reach the customer's plate. The restaurant is a smokehouse. Cooking temperature is the product.
That was one of nine high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The September 1 inspection produced a picture of compounding failures, not isolated ones. Inspectors cited improper handwashing technique, meaning employees were going through the motions of washing their hands without actually removing pathogens. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, which creates a direct transfer route from contaminated equipment to food.
Toxic chemicals were stored improperly, near food or without adequate labeling. That violation can cause acute poisoning without any warning to the person eating the food.
The smokehouse also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items, no written employee health policy, and no system for employees to report illness symptoms. Those three violations, taken together, mean a sick worker had no formal obligation to stay home, no policy telling them to report symptoms, and customers with no notice that some items may not be fully cooked.
Required procedures for specialized processes were not followed. Smoking and curing meat require precise time and temperature controls to prevent pathogen growth. An inspector noting that those procedures were not followed at a smokehouse is not a minor paperwork issue.
The person in charge was either absent or not performing their duties. That violation appears at the top of the inspection report for a reason.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooked food violation at County Line Smokehouse is particularly significant given the restaurant's format. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. In smoked meats, the low-and-slow cooking process can create a false visual cue, the pink smoke ring, that looks like undercooking even when the meat is safe. Without verified internal temperatures, there is no way to know which cuts reached safe levels and which did not.
The specialized process violation compounds that risk. Smoking, curing, and other low-temperature techniques require approved procedures filed with the state and followed precisely. When those procedures are not followed, the safety margin built into the process disappears.
The illness-reporting failures add a separate transmission route entirely. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, spreads through food handled by sick workers. A restaurant with no written health policy and no system for employees to report symptoms has no structural barrier against that route. The CDC attributes a significant share of multi-victim outbreaks to food workers who continued working while ill.
Improperly stored chemicals near food can cause poisoning that mimics other illnesses, making the source difficult to trace. Reused single-use items, flagged in the intermediate violation, add yet another contamination pathway.
The Longer Record
The September 1 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show County Line Smokehouse has been inspected 35 times and has accumulated 278 total violations. It has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern in the most recent inspection history is consistent. Inspectors found 10 high-severity violations on March 28, 2025. They found 9 high-severity violations on January 3, 2025. They found 9 high-severity violations again on January 13, 2026. The September 1, 2026 inspection brought the count back to 9 high-severity violations.
Between those spikes, the restaurant has passed cleanly. An April 1, 2025 inspection found zero violations. October inspections in 2025 found only single intermediate violations. That pattern, sharp spikes followed by clean visits, suggests the facility can meet standards when it chooses to, which makes the repeated high-severity counts harder to explain as coincidence or confusion about the rules.
The violations that keep reappearing are not minor. Food temperature, illness policy, person-in-charge failures, and specialized process compliance are core food safety obligations. They showed up in January 2025, March 2025, January 2026, and September 2026.
Still Open
Nine days after the September 1 inspection, a follow-up visit on September 10 found 2 high-severity violations. The restaurant remained open throughout.
State rules allow inspectors to close a facility immediately when conditions pose an imminent public health threat. Nine high-severity violations at a smokehouse, including undercooked food, improperly stored chemicals, and no illness-reporting system, did not meet that threshold on September 1.
County Line Smokehouse on South US Highway 25 was serving customers that day.
