WINTER GARDEN, FL. Inspectors visiting Habibi Lebanese Grill at 13770 W Colonial Drive on September 18 found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food, no documented procedures for parasite destruction in fish, food in poor or adulterated condition, and no consumer advisory warning customers that raw or undercooked items were on the menu. The restaurant logged eight high-severity violations that day. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical storage violation is among the most acute on the list. Cleaning agents and other toxic compounds stored improperly near food or without clear labeling can contaminate ingredients directly, and mislabeled containers have caused acute poisoning incidents when workers mistake chemicals for food-safe products.
The parasite destruction citation is specific to how the restaurant handles fish. State code requires that certain fish served raw or undercooked be frozen to a temperature and for a duration sufficient to kill parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm. No documentation of that process was on hand.
The shellfish traceability violation compounds the fish concern. Without proper shell stock identification tags and records, there is no way to trace where oysters, clams, or mussels came from if a customer falls ill. That traceability is the only mechanism public health officials have to pull a contaminated batch from circulation.
Food contact surfaces were also cited as not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that carry residue from one food to the next are one of the primary routes for bacterial cross-contamination in a commercial kitchen.
The restaurant also had no written employee health policy and inspectors documented improper handwashing technique. Those two violations together mean the kitchen had no formal mechanism to keep sick workers away from food, and workers who did wash their hands may not have done so effectively.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and improper handwashing technique is a direct transmission pathway for Norovirus. Norovirus causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and a single infected food worker using flawed handwashing technique can contaminate dozens of meals before anyone knows there is a problem. At Habibi Lebanese Grill, both safeguards failed on the same inspection.
The parasite destruction and shellfish traceability violations are specifically dangerous for customers who ordered fish or shellfish dishes. Parasites in fish are killed by proper freezing, not by visual inspection or even by cooking at lower temperatures. Without records showing that protocol was followed, customers who ordered fish had no assurance that step had been taken. And without shellfish tags, a contaminated batch of clams or oysters cannot be traced back to its harvest source.
The missing consumer advisory is a legal and practical failure for the same customers. Elderly diners, pregnant women, and anyone with a compromised immune system are at sharply elevated risk from raw or undercooked proteins. The advisory exists specifically to let those customers make an informed choice. It was not posted.
Improperly used wiping cloths, cited as an intermediate violation, are not a minor housekeeping note. A cloth used to wipe a raw protein surface and then used on a prep counter moves pathogens from one place to another efficiently. Combined with unsanitized food contact surfaces, the two violations reinforce each other.
The Longer Record
September 18 was not an outlier for this restaurant. State records show Habibi Lebanese Grill has been inspected 27 times and has accumulated 211 total violations across its history. The most recent inspection before September's visit, on April 30, produced seven high-severity and three intermediate violations. The visit before that, in October 2025, produced five high-severity and two intermediate violations.
Going back further, the pattern holds. Inspectors found five high-severity violations in January 2025, five more in September 2024, and seven high-severity violations with no intermediates in February 2024. The single clean inspection in this window, recorded in June 2025, stands as the exception across eight documented visits.
The September 2023 inspection produced ten high-severity violations, the highest single-visit count in the recent record. That visit was followed by six high-severity violations in June 2023. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history.
What the record shows is not a restaurant that had a bad day in September 2026. It is a restaurant that has produced high-severity violations at nearly every inspection for at least three years, in categories that overlap repeatedly: food handling, surface sanitation, employee health controls.
Still Open
State inspectors documented eight high-severity violations at Habibi Lebanese Grill on September 18. They left the restaurant open.
The facility has now logged high-severity violations in seven of its last eight inspections on record, dating to June 2023. The one inspection that produced zero high-severity violations sits between two visits that produced five each.
As of the September 18 inspection date, Habibi Lebanese Grill remained in operation at 13770 W Colonial Drive in Winter Garden.
