SOUTH PASADENA, FL. Food workers at a South Pasadena pub were not reporting illness symptoms to management, inspectors found on May 1, and the restaurant was never closed.
State inspectors visited Horse & Jockey British Pub and Restaurant at 1155 Pasadena Ave S and documented seven high-severity violations and two intermediate violations. Among the most serious: employees failing to report symptoms of illness, no written employee health policy, and inadequate handwashing by food workers preparing food for customers.
The facility remained open throughout.
What Inspectors Found
The inspection also cited no person in charge present or performing duties. That finding sits at the top of a cascade: when no one is actively supervising a kitchen, the violations below it become predictable.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned. Inspectors also found that single-use items were being reused, a practice that creates direct contamination pathways between uses.
The pub had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, meaning customers with compromised immune systems, the elderly, pregnant women, and young children had no way to make an informed choice about what they ordered.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting violation is the one that most directly threatened anyone who ate at Horse & Jockey on or around May 1. When food workers do not report symptoms of illness to management, and no written health policy exists to require them to, a sick employee can work an entire shift preparing and handling food with no intervention. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads through exactly this route.
The handwashing violations compound that risk. Two separate citations were issued: one for inadequate handwashing and one for improper technique. The distinction matters. A worker who attempts to wash their hands but uses the wrong technique still transfers pathogens to food surfaces. Both violations were present at the same time, in the same kitchen.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces create a secondary contamination pathway. Bacteria transferred from raw proteins to a cutting board or prep surface can survive and spread to the next item prepared on that surface. Combined with improperly cleaned multi-use utensils and reused single-use items, the inspection describes a kitchen where contamination controls had broken down at multiple points simultaneously.
The absence of a person in charge actively performing duties ties it together. Research consistently shows that kitchens without active managerial oversight accumulate critical violations at a significantly higher rate than those with engaged supervision.
The Longer Record
The May 1 inspection was not an aberration. Horse & Jockey has 33 inspections on record and 354 total violations documented across those visits. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern of high-severity violations stretches back continuously through the available history. In April 2024, inspectors cited 12 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations in a single visit, the highest single-inspection count in the record. A follow-up visit six days later still found 7 high and 4 intermediate violations. In November 2024, inspectors returned and found 7 high and 5 intermediate violations.
The violations from 2025 follow the same shape. February brought 5 high and 3 intermediate. March brought 6 high and 3 intermediate. December produced two separate inspections, the first with 6 high and 3 intermediate, the second with 3 high. The May 1, 2026 inspection, with 7 high-severity violations, fits squarely within that established range.
Three days after the May 1 inspection, on May 4, inspectors returned and found 3 high-severity violations still present. The facility remained open after that visit as well.
Across eight inspections spanning roughly two years, Horse & Jockey has not recorded a single visit with zero high-severity violations. The categories that appeared on May 1, including employee health, handwashing, and food contact surface sanitation, have appeared in prior inspections as well.
Still Open
The state's inspection records do not indicate that any enforcement action beyond the inspection itself was taken following the May 1 visit. Seven high-severity violations were documented. No emergency closure order was issued.
Horse & Jockey British Pub and Restaurant, with 354 violations across 33 inspections and no closures on record, was open for business.