SEBRING, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Dimitri's Family Restaurant on Kenilworth Boulevard and found that employees had no obligation, on paper or in practice, to report symptoms of illness before handling food. That single finding, one of six high-severity violations documented during the April 6 inspection, sits at the center of what health officials consider the most direct route from a sick food worker to a sick customer.
The restaurant remained open.
What Inspectors Found
The April 6 inspection produced six high-severity violations and three intermediate ones, a total of nine citations across the two most serious categories the state uses.
The illness-reporting failure did not stand alone. Inspectors also found that the restaurant had no written employee health policy at all, meaning there was no formal system requiring workers to disclose conditions like vomiting, diarrhea, or jaundice before a shift. The two violations together describe a kitchen where a symptomatic employee had no procedural reason to stay home and no documented requirement to say anything.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for failing to follow parasite destruction procedures, a requirement that applies to fish, pork, and wild game served raw or undercooked. Shellfish identification records were inadequate, meaning inspectors could not confirm where the oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu came from. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. And the person in charge was either not present or not performing required supervisory duties.
The three intermediate violations added to the picture: multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned, sanitizing solution or procedures were improper, and cooling and cold-holding equipment was inadequate to maintain required temperatures.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting and health policy violations are not paperwork problems. CDC data links food worker illness directly to Norovirus, which causes an estimated 20 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States each year. When no written policy exists and no reporting requirement is in force, a worker who is sick has no formal barrier between their shift and the food they are preparing.
The parasite destruction failure at Dimitri's carries a different but concrete risk. Parasites including Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork survive if food is not cooked to required temperatures or frozen according to specific protocols. A customer who ordered fish or pork that had not gone through proper parasite destruction had no way of knowing the procedure had been skipped.
The shellfish traceability violation means that if a customer became ill after eating oysters or clams at Dimitri's in April, investigators would have had no reliable documentation to trace the shellfish back to its source. That gap matters most precisely when it is needed most.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned become transfer points for bacteria from raw proteins to ready-to-eat foods. Combined with improperly cleaned utensils and a sanitizing solution that was not at correct concentration, the April 6 inspection described a kitchen where the basic barrier between contamination and the plate had broken down at multiple points simultaneously.
The Longer Record
Dimitri's Family Restaurant: Recent Inspection Pattern
The April 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 49 inspections on file for Dimitri's Family Restaurant, with 409 total violations across that history. The restaurant has been emergency-closed three times, all within a fourteen-month window ending in May 2025, each time for rodent or fly activity.
The pattern of inspection pairs is notable. In October 2025, inspectors returned the day after a ten-high-severity visit and still found three high-severity violations. In January 2026, a seven-high-severity inspection on January 22 was followed by another visit the next day. The restaurant did not appear to reach a clean inspection in that stretch.
The one clean inspection in the recent record, zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations on May 9, 2025, came two days after the third emergency closure and one day after the restaurant was permitted to reopen. That cleared inspection did not hold. By June 2026, inspectors were back documenting high-severity violations again.
In April 2026, with six high-severity violations on the books, including no illness policy, no illness reporting, unverifiable shellfish, and improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, Dimitri's Family Restaurant on Kenilworth Boulevard served its customers and stayed open.