DUNEDIN, FL. Inspectors who visited Delco's Original Steaks and Hoagies at 1701 Main St. on July 14 found that the restaurant was not cooking food to required minimum temperatures, a failure that allows Salmonella in poultry and other pathogens to survive and reach a customer's plate.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation sat alongside a separate citation for failing to follow parasite destruction procedures. For fish, pork, and certain other proteins, proper freezing or cooking is the only reliable method to kill parasites including Anisakis and Trichinella. Neither was being done to code.
Inspectors also cited employees for not reporting illness symptoms and for using improper handwashing technique. These two violations appeared in the same visit, in the same kitchen.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and food was documented as being in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items, meaning customers with no way to know the risks were ordering without any warning.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties during the inspection.
The intermediate violations added to the picture: cooling and cold-holding equipment was inadequate, single-use items were being reused, wiping cloths were used improperly, and ventilation was insufficient.
What These Violations Mean
Undercooking is among the most direct paths to a foodborne illness outbreak. Salmonella in poultry requires an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit to be destroyed. When food does not reach that threshold, the pathogen survives intact and is served to the customer. At Delco's, this violation was documented alongside failed parasite destruction protocols, meaning two separate failure points existed for two separate categories of biological hazard in the same kitchen on the same day.
The illness-reporting violation compounds both of those risks. When employees do not report symptoms, a sick worker can handle food across an entire shift. Norovirus in particular spreads efficiently through even brief hand-to-food contact, and improper handwashing technique, also cited here, means that even a worker who attempts to wash hands may still transfer pathogens. These three violations together, in one kitchen, represent a direct transmission chain from worker to food to customer.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces are a primary vehicle for bacterial transfer between proteins, between raw and cooked items, and between preparation cycles. At a cheesesteak restaurant, where raw meat and cooked product move across the same surfaces, this is not a theoretical concern. The absence of a consumer advisory for undercooked items means customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised had no notice that the food they ordered carried elevated risk.
The Longer Record
The July 14 inspection was not an aberration. State records show Delco's has been inspected 21 times, accumulating 174 total violations across that history, with no emergency closures on record.
The February 2026 visit, five months before this one, produced 11 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate ones. That is the highest single-visit high-severity count in the facility's recent history, and it was followed five months later by the 8-high-severity inspection documented here.
The pattern across the prior eight inspections is one of recurring high-severity citations. The October 2024 visit produced 5 high-severity violations. The April 2024 inspection cycle included back-to-back visits, the first with 5 high-severity violations and the second with 2. A cluster of three inspections in February 2025, over a span of six days, suggests the facility was struggling to resolve violations quickly enough to pass.
The one exception in the recent record is a June 2025 visit that produced only 1 high-severity violation. That result did not hold. Eight months later, the February 2026 inspection logged 11 high-severity violations. Five months after that came July 14.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Eight high-severity violations at Delco's on July 14, including undercooking, failed parasite protocols, illness-reporting failures, and improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, did not meet that threshold.
The restaurant on Main Street in Dunedin remained open for business.
