WINTER GARDEN, FL. Inspectors visiting Don Poncho Taqueria at 1165 E Plant Street on June 2 found that food was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures, a violation that means pathogens like Salmonella can survive in poultry and reach a customer's plate alive.
The restaurant collected six high-severity violations and four intermediate violations that day. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation was not the only direct threat to customers. Inspectors also found that food contact surfaces, including cutting boards and prep equipment, were not properly cleaned or sanitized, creating a direct vehicle for bacterial transfer from one food to the next.
Employees were also found using improper hand and arm washing technique. That distinction matters: the violation is not that workers skipped handwashing entirely, but that the method used leaves pathogens on the hands even after an attempt is made.
The facility was also cited for failing to properly use time as a public health control. When a kitchen relies on time rather than temperature to keep food safe, it allows food to sit in the bacterial growth zone between 41 and 135 degrees for a defined window. Failing to follow those procedures correctly eliminates the only safety buffer the kitchen was using.
Two additional high-severity violations rounded out the list. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, meaning customers with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, and the elderly had no way to make an informed choice. Required procedures for a specialized cooking process were also not being followed, a violation that signals the kitchen was operating outside its own safety framework.
On the intermediate tier, inspectors documented improper sewage or wastewater disposal, improper sanitizer concentration, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooking violation is among the most direct paths from a kitchen to a hospital. Salmonella in poultry does not die at temperatures below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. When a facility is cited for not reaching required minimums, it means that safety threshold was not being reliably met on the day inspectors arrived.
The handwashing technique violation compounds that risk. A worker who handles raw poultry and then touches a cutting board or utensil, believing their hands are clean, can transfer pathogens across an entire prep line. At Don Poncho Taqueria, inspectors found both the handwashing failure and the food contact surface contamination on the same visit.
The sewage violation adds a separate and distinct hazard. Improper disposal of wastewater creates the possibility of fecal contamination reaching surfaces, equipment, or food in the facility. Combined with sanitizer that is not mixed to the correct concentration, surfaces that appear clean may not be.
The toilet facility violation is not simply a comfort issue. Inadequate or broken restroom infrastructure discourages employees from taking proper handwashing breaks, feeding directly back into the hand hygiene failures documented elsewhere in the same inspection report.
The Longer Record
The June 2 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Don Poncho Taqueria has been inspected 24 times and has accumulated 209 total violations across that history.
The pattern of high-severity violations at this location stretches back years. The October 2025 inspection produced 7 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations. The February 2025 visit turned up 5 high and 7 intermediate. November 2024 brought 5 high and 4 intermediate. High-severity violations appeared in every inspection from mid-2022 onward, with the sole exceptions being two clean visits in early 2023.
The June 2 tally of 6 high-severity violations is the worst single-day high-severity count the facility has recorded in the available history, exceeding even the October 2025 visit. The facility has never been emergency-closed in any of those 24 inspections.
Still Open
Under Florida's inspection system, emergency closure requires an inspector to determine that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health serious enough to justify shutting a business on the spot. Six high-severity violations, including undercooking and contaminated food contact surfaces at a taqueria where meat preparation is central to the menu, did not meet that threshold on June 2.
Don Poncho Taqueria was open for business after the inspection concluded.