ST. PETERSBURG, FL. Inspectors visiting Courtside Grille at 110 Fountain Pkwy N on September 29 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means the restaurant was serving ingredients that had bypassed federal safety inspection entirely. Despite that finding, and five other high-severity violations documented the same day, the restaurant was not closed.
The food sourcing violation sits at the top of the list for a reason. When a restaurant cannot document where its food came from, there is no chain of traceability if a customer gets sick.
What Inspectors Found
The six high-severity violations covered nearly every layer of food safety a restaurant is supposed to maintain. No qualified person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties during the inspection. Employees were not reporting illness symptoms to management, a requirement that exists specifically to keep contagious workers out of food preparation areas.
Handwashing failures appeared twice in the same inspection. The facility had inadequate handwashing infrastructure, meaning the physical setup made proper hygiene difficult or impossible. Inspectors also cited improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning that even when employees did attempt to wash their hands, they were not doing it correctly.
The sixth high-severity violation involved time as a public health control. When a restaurant uses time rather than temperature to keep food safe, it must track exactly how long food has been sitting in the temperature danger zone and discard it on schedule. Inspectors found that protocol was not being followed properly.
The single intermediate violation involved improper use of wiping cloths, a common contamination vehicle when cloths are shared between surfaces or stored improperly between uses.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is the one that should concern anyone who ate at Courtside Grille around September 29. Food from unapproved sources has not passed USDA or FDA inspection. If that food carries Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli and someone gets sick, investigators have no supplier records to trace. The outbreak investigation starts from zero.
The illness reporting failure compounds that risk directly. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, spreads person to person with extreme efficiency. A food worker who is symptomatic and does not report it, and who is also not washing their hands correctly, is a near-complete transmission pathway to every plate that leaves the kitchen.
The handwashing failures documented here are not minor paperwork issues. Inadequate facilities means the physical infrastructure, soap, water access, proper placement, was not up to standard. Improper technique means the behavior was also wrong. Both failures at once mean the handwashing step that is supposed to interrupt contamination was not functioning at all.
Time as a public health control requires strict documentation and discipline. Food left in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, allows bacteria to multiply rapidly. When the time tracking system breaks down, there is no way to know how long any given item has been unsafe.
The Longer Record
The September 29 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Courtside Grille has been inspected 36 times and has accumulated 371 total violations across its history, with no emergency closures on record.
The pattern of high-severity violations at this location is consistent across years. In April 2023, inspectors found 14 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations in a single visit, the worst single inspection in the recent record. Six months later, in October 2025, another inspection turned up 6 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate violations, a nearly identical profile to September 2026.
The March 2026 inspection, just six months before the most recent visit, produced 5 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The January 2024 inspection produced 9 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations. In eight of the inspections on record spanning from 2023 through 2026, the facility logged at least 5 high-severity violations per visit.
There have been no emergency closures at Courtside Grille in any of those 36 inspections. The September 29 visit, with food from an unknown source and employees not reporting illness symptoms, was no exception.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations, including uninspected food and a broken illness-reporting system, did not meet that threshold on September 29 at Courtside Grille.
The restaurant remained open that day. Customers who came in for a meal after the inspection had no way of knowing what the inspection report contained.
State records show the facility has carried a high-severity violation load in nearly every inspection for at least three years. The record now stands at 371 total violations across 36 inspections, and the doors have never been ordered shut.
