ORLANDO, FL. Inspectors visiting La Granja Chicken Steak and Seafood on South Alafaya Trail on August 5 found food that had not been cooked to the required minimum temperature, a violation that at a restaurant specializing in chicken carries a direct risk of Salmonella survival and transmission to customers.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The full list of high-severity violations from that single inspection reads as a catalog of the most fundamental food safety failures a restaurant can produce. Beyond the undercooking finding, inspectors cited food from an unapproved or unknown source, meaning some ingredients served to customers that day had not passed through USDA or FDA inspection channels.
Inspectors also found no employee health policy, or an inadequate one, at the location. They documented food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, and inadequate shell stock identification records, a traceability requirement for oysters, clams, and mussels. There was no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. And the person in charge was either not present or not performing their duties.
Four intermediate violations accompanied the seven high-severity ones. Inspectors cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooking violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at La Granja on or around August 5. Salmonella in poultry survives temperatures below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. At a restaurant whose name and menu center on chicken, a failure to reach that threshold is not a paperwork problem.
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation compounds that risk. Food sourced outside licensed and inspected channels has no chain of documentation. If a customer becomes ill, there is no supplier record to trace, no lot number to pull, no way to determine whether the problem was isolated or widespread. That traceability gap is precisely what state sourcing requirements are designed to prevent.
The absence of an employee health policy creates a separate and equally direct transmission route. Without a written policy requiring sick employees to report symptoms and stay off the line, a worker with Norovirus can prepare food for an entire shift. Norovirus accounts for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and food handlers are among its most efficient vectors.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, reused single-use items, and inadequately sanitized multi-use utensils collectively describe a kitchen where bacterial transfer between raw and ready-to-eat foods is not being controlled. The improper sewage or wastewater disposal finding adds a fecal contamination risk to that picture. Taken together, these are not isolated oversights. They describe a kitchen operating without basic hygiene infrastructure in place.
The Longer Record
The August 5 inspection was not an aberration. State records show 27 inspections on file for this location, with 322 total violations documented across that history.
The eight most recent prior inspections, going back to October 2023, each produced at least five high-severity violations. The two inspections conducted in late March 2026, just four months before this latest visit, resulted in 11 high-severity violations on March 26 and 8 high-severity violations the following day, March 27. Both of those inspections also included five intermediate violations each.
The pattern does not show a restaurant cycling through a rough period. It shows a consistent, multi-year record of high-severity findings across nearly every inspection on file. The July 2025 inspection produced 6 high-severity violations. The January 2025 inspection produced 5. The July 2024 inspection produced 5. The pattern holds across inspectors, across seasons, and across years.
Despite 322 violations across 27 inspections, the facility has never been emergency-closed.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented seven high-severity violations at La Granja on South Alafaya Trail on August 5, 2026, including food cooked below the required minimum temperature, ingredients sourced from an unknown or unapproved supplier, and no functioning employee health policy. They also found four intermediate violations, among them improper sewage disposal.
At the end of that inspection, the restaurant remained open.
