TEQUESTA, FL. State inspectors walked into Greek Taverna at 289 South US Hwy 1 on August 18 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a finding that means no federal safety inspection ever touched whatever was being served to customers that day.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food sourcing citation is among the most serious a Florida inspector can write. Food that bypasses USDA or FDA oversight carries no traceability, meaning that if a customer became ill, there would be no supply chain to trace, no recall to trigger, no way to identify what went wrong or how many others were exposed.
Alongside that, inspectors cited a failure to follow parasite destruction procedures. For certain fish, pork, and wild game, proper freezing or cooking temperatures are the only barrier between a customer and live parasites including Anisakis and Trichinella. When those procedures are skipped, the barrier disappears.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. That citation means cleaning agents or other hazardous substances were in proximity to food, or were not clearly identified, creating a direct contamination risk that has nothing to do with cooking temperatures or sourcing.
Inspectors also cited food in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated; food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized; and improper handwashing technique. The handwashing citation is distinct from simply not washing hands. Technique failure means employees were going through the motion of handwashing but leaving pathogens behind.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of unapproved sourcing and parasite destruction failures is particularly concerning because they compound each other. Food from an uninspected source is already an unknown quantity. If that food also skips the freezing or cooking step designed to kill parasites, a customer is eating something that was never screened at any point in its journey from supplier to plate.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, cited here as a high-severity violation, are one of the primary ways bacteria moves from one food to another in a kitchen. A cutting board, a prep surface, a utensil that was not properly sanitized carries whatever was on it last into whatever comes next.
The chemical storage violation is one that can cause harm immediately and acutely, not through the slow accumulation of bacterial exposure but through direct contamination of food with cleaning agents or other toxic substances. Mislabeled chemicals add a second layer of risk: staff who do not know what a container holds cannot protect against it.
Inadequate toilet facilities may sound minor against that backdrop, but inspectors note the direct connection to handwashing behavior. Employees who avoid poorly maintained restrooms are also skipping the handwashing that follows, feeding directly into the technique failure already cited.
The Longer Record
The August 18 inspection was not an aberration. It was the fourth visit in the past 13 months to produce multiple high-severity violations at this address.
In March 2026, inspectors found five high-severity and one intermediate violation. In August 2025, they found four high-severity and two intermediate violations. In January 2025, they found one high-severity violation. The May 2026 visit, sandwiched between two high-severity outings, produced zero violations at either level, a result that now looks like an outlier in the longer pattern.
Across 19 inspections on record, the restaurant has accumulated 103 total violations. Two of those inspections ended in emergency closure orders. In July 2023, the restaurant was shut down for rodent, roach, and fly activity and allowed to reopen the following day. In April 2022, it was closed for rodent activity and reopened the next day.
The January 2023 inspection, which came six months before the July closure, produced six high-severity and three intermediate violations, matching the severity count from this month's inspection. The pattern across the full record is one of serious findings, brief corrections, and recurring high-severity citations in the inspections that follow.
Open for Business
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to the public. Six high-severity violations, including food from uninspected sources, parasite procedure failures, and improperly stored toxic chemicals, did not meet that threshold on August 18.
The restaurant at 289 South US Hwy 1 in Tequesta served customers that day and has remained open since.
