OVIEDO, FL. State inspectors found food from unapproved or unknown sources at Giovanni's Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria/Black Box Pizza on Alafaya Trail in August, a violation that means the restaurant was serving ingredients with no verifiable safety inspection trail. That was one of ten high-severity violations documented on August 10. The restaurant was not closed.
Inspectors also cited employees for inadequate handwashing, improper handwashing technique, failure to report illness symptoms, and the absence of any written employee health policy. That cluster of violations, all flagged as high-severity, means the restaurant was operating with almost none of the basic safeguards that prevent a sick employee from transmitting illness directly to customers.
What Inspectors Found
The food temperature violation is among the most direct dangers in the report. Food not cooked to required minimum temperatures means pathogens survive the cooking process. Salmonella in poultry requires an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit to be killed. Below that threshold, bacteria remain active and viable in a finished dish.
Toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food areas is a separate category of risk entirely. Mislabeled or misplaced chemicals can contaminate food directly, and in the wrong concentration can cause acute poisoning without any warning sign a customer would recognize.
The no-consumer-advisory violation means customers ordering raw or undercooked items, including dishes on the menu that may contain raw eggs, undercooked beef, or lightly cooked seafood, were not informed of the risk. Pregnant women, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system face the highest exposure.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved or unknown sources is not a paperwork problem. When food enters a restaurant through channels outside the USDA and FDA inspection system, there is no traceability. If a customer gets sick, investigators cannot trace the ingredient back to its origin. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli have all been linked to uninspected food sources in prior outbreak investigations nationwide.
The handwashing violations at Giovanni's were cited twice, once for inadequacy and once for improper technique. Those are two distinct failures. A food worker who attempts to wash hands but uses the wrong technique, insufficient soap, or insufficient time still leaves pathogens on their hands. Combined with the violation for employees not reporting illness symptoms and the absence of any written employee health policy, the August 10 inspection documented a facility where a sick employee had no formal obligation to disclose illness and no consistent barrier between their hands and customers' food.
Improper sewage and wastewater disposal, flagged at the intermediate level, adds a contamination pathway that most diners would not consider. Raw sewage contains E. coli, Hepatitis A, and Norovirus. When disposal is improper, those pathogens can reach food preparation surfaces or employee hands without any visible sign.
The sanitizer violation compounds the surface-cleaning failure. Food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned were then treated with sanitizer that inspectors found to be improperly mixed or applied. That means the second line of defense failed at the same location as the first.
The Longer Record
The August 10 inspection was not a departure from Giovanni's history. It was the most severe inspection on record at the facility, but it arrived after years of similar findings. State records show 31 inspections on file for the Alafaya Trail location, with 388 total violations accumulated across that history.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed. But the inspection record shows high-severity violations in every single inspection over the past three years. In January 2026, inspectors found seven high-severity violations and five intermediate. In December 2024, seven high and two intermediate. In August 2025, six high and four intermediate.
The categories have repeated. Violations tied to employee health, food handling, and surface sanitation have appeared across multiple inspection cycles. A facility accumulating violations in the same categories across consecutive inspections, without a closure triggering corrective action, presents a different kind of concern than a restaurant caught in a single bad week.
The facility has no prior emergency closures on record despite 388 documented violations over 31 inspections.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. On August 10, with ten high-severity violations documented at Giovanni's, including food from unknown sources, undercooked food, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and no functioning employee illness policy, the inspector did not order the restaurant closed.
Giovanni's remained open and continued serving customers.
