ARCADIA, FL. Inspectors visiting El Charro LLC on North Brevard Avenue on May 6 found that the restaurant was not following parasite destruction procedures for fish and other high-risk proteins, a failure that can leave live parasites in food served directly to customers.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction citation means the kitchen was serving fish, pork, or wild game without the verified freezing or cooking steps required to kill organisms like Anisakis roundworm and Trichinella. Those parasites survive brief cooking and can cause serious gastrointestinal illness.
Inspectors also found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food. That violation carries a risk of acute poisoning if an unlabeled container is mistaken for a food-safe product or if a chemical contaminates a nearby surface.
The absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods compounded the parasite risk. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised have no way to make an informed choice about what they are eating if the menu does not disclose that certain items are served raw or undercooked.
Inspectors further documented that food contact surfaces, including cutting boards and prep equipment, were not properly cleaned or sanitized, creating a direct transfer route for bacteria between raw and ready-to-eat foods. Employees were also observed using improper handwashing technique, meaning pathogens remained on their hands even when a washing attempt was made.
The shellfish citation added another layer. Without proper shell stock identification records, there is no way to trace oysters, clams, or mussels back to their harvest source if a customer becomes ill.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure is not a paperwork problem. Fish that has not been frozen to the required temperature for the required duration, or cooked to a verified internal temperature, can carry live Anisakis larvae. Ingesting those larvae causes anisakiasis, a condition that produces severe abdominal pain, nausea, and in some cases requires surgical intervention. El Charro's inspection record does not specify which proteins triggered the citation, but the violation applies to fish served raw or undercooked and to pork and wild game preparations.
The chemical storage violation is separately serious. A mislabeled or improperly stored chemical near a food prep area can contaminate ingredients or surfaces without any visible sign. Unlike a temperature violation, which produces a measurable number, chemical contamination often goes undetected until someone is already sick.
Improper handwashing technique is one of the most direct transmission routes in a commercial kitchen. The violation does not mean employees skipped handwashing entirely. It means the method was wrong, and pathogens that cause norovirus, salmonella, and E. coli infections were not reliably removed from hands that were then used to handle food.
The time-as-public-health-control violation means food was held in the bacterial growth zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, without a documented system to track how long it had been there. When temperature monitoring is replaced by time tracking, the time tracking has to be precise and documented. It was not.
The Longer Record
El Charro: Recent Inspection History
The May 2026 inspection was not an outlier. State records show El Charro has been inspected 29 times and has accumulated 287 total violations across that history. The six most recent inspections before May all produced high-severity citations, ranging from four to eight per visit.
The November 2025 and June 2025 inspections each produced six high-severity violations. The February 2025 visit produced five. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
The one clean inspection in the recent record came in November 2023, when inspectors found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That visit sits between two inspections with a combined 14 high-severity violations. It has not been repeated.
The May 2026 visit, with seven high-severity violations and no intermediate violations at all, is the highest single-inspection high-severity count in the past year. The restaurant served customers that day, and the days after, without interruption.