JACKSONVILLE, FL. Food workers at Enza's Italian Restaurant on San Jose Boulevard had no written policy requiring them to report illness symptoms to management, according to a state inspection conducted October 6, 2026 — a finding that puts anyone who ate there during an active illness in the direct path of transmission.
That was one of six high-severity violations inspectors documented that day. The restaurant remained open throughout.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited employees for improper hand and arm washing technique. This is distinct from not washing hands at all. It means workers went through the motion of handwashing but did so incorrectly, leaving pathogens on their hands before handling food.
Inspectors found that shellfish records were inadequate, meaning the restaurant could not fully document the source of any oysters, clams, or mussels served that day. Shellfish are commonly eaten raw or lightly cooked. Without proper identification tags, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch if a customer becomes ill.
The sixth high-severity violation involved time as a public health control. Some restaurants are permitted to hold food in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, for a limited window rather than maintaining constant refrigeration. At Enza's, inspectors found that system was not being followed correctly, meaning food may have spent an untracked amount of time at temperatures where bacteria multiply rapidly.
No person in charge was present or actively performing supervisory duties during the inspection.
A follow-up inspection conducted the next day, October 7, showed zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no illness reporting policy and an employee actively failing to report symptoms is the condition that precedes most multi-victim foodborne outbreaks. Norovirus, which sickens an estimated 20 million Americans per year, spreads primarily through infected food workers who prepare meals while symptomatic. A written health policy is the mechanism that gives workers both the instruction and the protection to stay home. Without one, there is no documented expectation and no clear path for reporting.
Improper shellfish records create a different but equally serious problem: traceability. If a customer develops a vibrio or hepatitis A infection after eating oysters at a restaurant, health investigators need harvest location records and dealer tags to identify the contaminated source and pull it from other restaurants. Inadequate records at Enza's mean that chain of investigation would have started with a gap.
The time-as-public-health-control violation compounds the temperature concern. When this system breaks down, food that should have been discarded after a set window remains in service. There is no way to know, after the fact, how long affected food sat in the danger zone.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, the first of two intermediate violations, carry their own compounding risk. Bacterial biofilms form on inadequately cleaned surfaces within 24 hours and are significantly more resistant to standard cleaning than fresh contamination.
The Longer Record
The October 6 inspection was not an aberration. It was the eighth consecutive inspection, going back to November 2023, in which Enza's received at least three high-severity violations.
State records show 27 total inspections on file for the San Jose Boulevard location, with 138 total violations across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern by year is consistent. In 2023, inspectors found three high-severity violations. In 2024, two separate inspections each produced three high-severity violations. In 2025, inspections in March and August yielded four high-severity violations each. The March 2026 inspection found five high-severity violations. October 6, 2026 reached six.
Enza's Italian Restaurant: High-Severity Violations by Inspection
The follow-up inspection on October 7 cleared all violations, as has happened after prior high-violation visits. That cycle, serious findings followed by a clean bill the next day, has repeated across three years without producing a closure.
On October 6, 2026, Enza's Italian Restaurant served customers under six high-severity violations, including no system to keep sick workers out of the kitchen and no proper records for the shellfish on the menu. The state did not close it.
