KISSIMMEE, FL. State inspectors walked into a Kissimmee Cowboy Chicken on August 24 and found that food was not being cooked to the required minimum temperature, a critical failure at a restaurant whose entire menu is built around chicken.
Cowboy Chicken at 3290 Margaritaville Blvd collected six high-severity violations and two intermediate violations during that inspection. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation did not emergency-close the restaurant. It remained open.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooked food violation is the headline number at a chicken restaurant. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and an undercooking violation means the internal temperature of chicken being served to customers was not confirmed to reach that threshold.
Toxic chemicals were also found improperly stored or labeled. At a restaurant, that means cleaning agents or other hazardous substances were positioned near food or food preparation surfaces in a way that created a contamination risk.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch the food before it reaches a plate, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. That is a direct cross-contamination pathway.
Then there were the three violations that, taken together, describe a workplace with no functioning illness safeguards. No written employee health policy. Employees not reporting illness symptoms. And no person in charge present or performing oversight duties.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooked chicken violation is not a paperwork problem. Salmonella is the leading bacterial cause of foodborne illness linked to poultry, and the 165-degree minimum internal temperature requirement exists because it is the threshold at which the pathogen is reliably destroyed. A customer who ate undercooked chicken at this location on August 24 had no way of knowing it.
The three illness-related violations compound each other in a specific way. A written employee health policy is the mechanism that tells workers they are required to report symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, or jaundice before handling food. Without that policy, there is no formal instruction. Without that instruction, there is no expectation of reporting. And without a person in charge actively monitoring the floor, there is no one to catch a visibly ill employee before they touch a prep surface. Norovirus alone accounts for roughly 20 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States each year, and sick food workers are the primary transmission route.
The improper sewage disposal violation adds a separate contamination risk. Raw sewage contains fecal pathogens including E. coli and hepatitis A. When waste water is not properly contained and removed from a food service environment, those pathogens can reach surfaces, equipment, and food.
Reusing single-use items, the final intermediate violation, closes the loop. Gloves, cups, and disposable utensils are designed for one contact cycle. Reusing them transfers whatever contamination accumulated during the first use directly to the next food or surface they touch.
The Longer Record
Cowboy Chicken Kissimmee: Inspection History
This was not a bad day. Across 11 inspections on record, this Cowboy Chicken location has accumulated 108 total violations. High-severity violations appeared in seven of the eight dated inspection records available, including counts of 8, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, and 4 in prior visits.
The only clean inspection in the record, a September 2024 visit with zero high and zero intermediate violations, stands as an outlier. The inspection that followed it two days later found four high-severity and four intermediate violations.
The pattern in the high-severity categories is consistent. Violations tied to employee illness, management oversight, and food handling surfaces have appeared across multiple inspection cycles, not as isolated findings but as recurring citations at the same facility.
The location has never been emergency-closed. In January 2025, inspectors returned four days apart and found 8 high-severity violations each time.
On August 24, 2026, with six high-severity violations documented, including undercooked chicken and improperly stored toxic chemicals, the restaurant finished its inspection and kept serving customers.
