FLORIDA. State records show Buffet City at 1030 58th Street North in St. Petersburg was inspected five times between August 3 and August 13, 2026, and walked away from that stretch with seven high-severity violations and one intermediate, the worst combined record of any facility statewide during the 90-day review period.
The violations documented at Buffet City touched nearly every layer of food safety management. Inspectors cited the restaurant for having no person in charge present or performing duties, employees failing to report illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing facilities, improper handwashing technique, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled.
That is not a single bad day. Those are systemic failures, documented across five separate visits in eleven days.
The Facilities With the Most to Answer For
Thinh An Kitchen and Tofu at 8104 West Waters Avenue in Tampa drew three high-severity violations across five inspections between August 21 and August 25. Inspectors cited employees for not reporting illness symptoms, improper handwashing technique, and the absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked menu items.
AC Sports Bar at 504 North Alafaya Trail in Orlando logged one high-severity violation and four intermediate violations over five inspections between August 7 and August 26. The high-severity finding was improperly cleaned food contact surfaces. Intermediate violations included improper sewage or wastewater disposal, uncleaned multi-use utensils, reused single-use items, and inadequate ventilation.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen at 6310 103rd Street in Jacksonville was cited for improperly stored or mislabeled toxic chemicals, the high-severity violation on its record, alongside three intermediate violations: uncleaned multi-use utensils, reused single-use items, and inadequate ventilation. Inspectors visited five times between August 4 and August 21.
Molly Malone's Irish Pub at 304 East Davis Boulevard in Tampa holds the most inspections of any facility on this list: ten visits between August 12 and August 27. That pace, roughly one inspection every day and a half, is itself a signal. The pub drew one high-severity violation for lacking a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, plus two intermediate violations for improperly reused single-use items and inadequate ventilation.
Shady Oak Restaurant and Tavern at 2984 West Old New York Avenue in DeLand was cited for food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, a high-severity violation, plus inadequate ventilation as an intermediate finding. Inspectors made five visits between August 18 and August 27.
Facilities That Kept Getting Inspected and Kept Passing
Not every facility on this list drew violations. Taqueria La Calentana Dos at 604 East Moody Boulevard in Bunnell was inspected eight times between August 3 and August 6 and posted zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations across all eight visits.
Romano's Pizzeria and Restaurant at 4010 US 1 South in Saint Augustine went through seven inspections between August 18 and August 21 with no high-severity or intermediate violations. Cooper at 4610 PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens and Cracker Barrel No. 749 at 520 East 23rd Street in Panama City each logged five clean inspections over the same 90-day period.
What These Violations Mean
The most dangerous pattern in this data is the handwashing cluster at Buffet City and Thinh An Kitchen and Tofu. At Buffet City, inspectors documented both inadequate handwashing facilities and improper technique. At Thinh An, the citation was for technique alone. These are distinct problems: one means the physical infrastructure for hand hygiene is missing, the other means employees are going through the motions without removing pathogens. Studies show improper handwashing technique leaves enough viable bacteria on hands to contaminate food even when a washing attempt is made. At a buffet serving dozens of guests at a time, that failure multiplies rapidly.
The employee illness reporting violation, cited at both Buffet City and Thinh An Kitchen and Tofu, is the violation food safety researchers most associate with multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus and other highly contagious pathogens spread from a single symptomatic worker to a large number of guests before anyone knows an outbreak has started. The citation does not mean a sick employee was observed handling food; it means the facility lacked the documented system to ensure sick workers stay out of the kitchen.
Toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, cited at both Buffet City and the Jacksonville Popeyes, represents an acute rather than cumulative risk. A mislabeled cleaning solution stored near food prep surfaces can contaminate food directly. The health consequence is immediate, not the result of bacterial growth over time.
The consumer advisory violation, appearing at Buffet City, Thinh An, and Molly Malone's, is often dismissed as paperwork. It is not. A menu that serves raw or undercooked proteins without a written disclosure gives immunocompromised customers, pregnant women, the elderly, and young children no way to make an informed choice. The advisory exists specifically because those groups face significantly higher risk of serious illness from pathogens like Salmonella and E. coli that are killed by proper cooking temperatures.
The Longer Record
The inspection frequency in this dataset is the story. Ten inspections in sixteen days at Molly Malone's Irish Pub is not a routine monitoring schedule. Standard inspection frequency in Florida runs from one to four times per year for most food service establishments. A facility drawing ten visits in under three weeks is almost certainly responding to complaint-driven inspections, callback visits after unresolved violations, or both. The pub still carried a high-severity violation on its record as of August 27.
Buffet City's five inspections in eleven days tell a similar story. The facility's seven high-severity violations span the full range of management failure: no supervisor present, employees not reporting illness, broken handwashing infrastructure, dirty food contact surfaces, improperly stored chemicals, and no disclosure for raw foods. That breadth, across five visits, is not consistent with an isolated lapse. It reflects a facility where the underlying management practices have not changed between inspections.
Thinh An Kitchen and Tofu's five inspections in four days, between August 21 and August 25, produced three high-severity violations. The handwashing technique citation and the illness reporting citation together describe a kitchen where the two most basic personal hygiene requirements, clean hands and sick workers staying home, are not being reliably met.
Rotis Indian Restaurant at 13025 US Highway 301 South in Riverview drew eight inspections between July 28 and August 27, more than any facility in the dataset except Molly Malone's. Its two intermediate violations, uncleaned multi-use utensils and improperly reused single-use items, are sanitation failures that develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning. Eight inspections over 30 days with those violations still on record suggests the corrections made after each visit are not holding.
Subway No. 28696 at 6010 County Road 579 in Seffner logged six inspections between August 17 and August 25 with one intermediate violation for reused single-use items. As of August 25, that citation remained unresolved on the record.
