CLEARWATER, FL. An inspector visiting Downtown Pizza Sports Bar and Grill at 428 Cleveland St. on May 19 documented that food was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures, a violation that state records flag as a leading cause of foodborne illness, including salmonella survival in poultry below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The restaurant was not closed.
That single violation was one of six high-severity citations recorded during the inspection. The facility also racked up two intermediate violations before the inspector left.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation and the handwashing citation are a dangerous combination. Inspectors noted that employees were not using proper hand and arm washing technique, meaning pathogens remain on hands even when a washing attempt is made. Pair that with food not reaching required cooking temperatures, and the kitchen had two separate failure points capable of putting the same bacteria on a customer's plate.
The inspector also cited the restaurant for not properly using time as a public health control. When a kitchen uses time rather than temperature to manage food safety, it is allowed to keep food in the temperature danger zone for a defined window before discarding it. That system requires strict tracking. The record shows it was not being followed.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled, a citation state records associate with risk of acute poisoning through contamination or mislabeling of food containers.
No allergen awareness was demonstrated by staff. The citation carries weight: food allergies affect 32 million Americans, and allergic reactions send 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. A restaurant where staff cannot demonstrate allergen awareness is one where a customer with a peanut or shellfish allergy has no reliable way to know what is in their food.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, meaning customers, including the elderly, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems, had no notice that certain items on the menu carried elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooking violation is the one most directly connected to a customer ending up in a hospital. Salmonella in poultry is not destroyed below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. When a kitchen sends undercooked food to a table and staff are simultaneously washing their hands incorrectly, the contamination pathway from raw protein to finished plate is essentially uninterrupted.
The time-as-public-health-control failure compounds that risk. Food sitting in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, allows bacterial growth at a rapid rate. If the tracking system meant to limit that exposure is not being used correctly, there is no reliable way to know how long food has been at unsafe temperatures before it reaches a customer.
The allergen violation is a different category of danger but no less serious. It does not require a systemic failure in the kitchen. A single staff member who cannot identify which dishes contain tree nuts, shellfish, or gluten is enough to send an allergic customer into anaphylaxis. The citation at Downtown Pizza Sports Bar and Grill was not about a mislabeled item. It was about a demonstrated absence of awareness across the operation.
The chemical storage violation adds a third risk category. Cleaning agents and sanitizers stored near or above food preparation surfaces can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers can cause staff to apply chemicals to surfaces that come into contact with food.
The Longer Record
Downtown Pizza Sports Bar: Inspection History
State records show 32 inspections on file for Downtown Pizza Sports Bar and Grill, with 291 total violations accumulated across that history. That is not the profile of a facility occasionally slipping on a minor citation. It is a sustained pattern.
The worst single inspection on record was in January 2024, when inspectors cited 7 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The May 2026 visit, with 6 high-severity citations, is the second-highest high-severity count in the available history. In between, the facility was cited for 5 high-severity violations as recently as March 2026, just ten weeks before the May inspection.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed. In March 2025, it passed an inspection with zero high-severity or intermediate violations, the only clean result in the recent record. That outcome makes the surrounding inspections harder to explain as a matter of circumstances.
After the May 19 inspection, with six high-severity violations documented and the kitchen still running, Downtown Pizza Sports Bar and Grill remained open for business.