SANFORD, FL. State inspectors walked into La Granja Chicken Steak and Seafood on South Orlando Drive on August 26 and documented that food was coming from unapproved or unknown sources, meaning the chicken, seafood, or other ingredients on customers' plates could not be traced back to any facility that had passed a federal safety inspection.
That was one of seven high-severity violations cited that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The full list of high-severity violations reads like a cascade of overlapping failures. No qualified person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties. Employees were not reporting symptoms of illness. Workers were using improper handwashing technique.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards and prep equipment that touch the food before it reaches a plate, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Two separate violations involved toxic chemicals and substances stored or labeled improperly near food.
The three intermediate violations compounded the picture. Sewage or wastewater was not being disposed of properly. Single-use items were being reused. Ventilation and lighting were inadequate.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is the one with the longest reach. When a restaurant buys from unapproved or unknown suppliers, those ingredients have bypassed USDA and FDA inspection entirely. If a customer gets sick, investigators have no supply chain to trace. There is no lot number, no distributor record, no path back to the source.
The illness-reporting violation is more immediate. Food workers who do not report symptoms are the leading cause of multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, one of the most contagious foodborne pathogens, spreads through a single infected worker touching food or surfaces. Improper handwashing technique, cited separately, means that even when workers attempt to wash their hands, pathogens remain. Both violations were present at La Granja on August 26.
The chemical violations add a different category of risk entirely. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas create a direct path to acute poisoning, whether through mislabeled containers or splashes onto food surfaces. Two high-severity citations for chemical handling in a single inspection is not a paperwork problem.
The sewage disposal violation closes the loop. Improper wastewater handling creates fecal contamination risk throughout a kitchen. Taken together, these ten violations document a kitchen where food sources were unknown, sick employees were not being screened, surfaces were not being sanitized, and waste was not being properly contained.
The Longer Record
The August 26 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 24 inspections on file for the Sanford location, with 140 total violations documented across that history.
The most recent inspection before August 26 was on January 15, 2026, when inspectors found 5 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. Before that, a August 2025 inspection produced 3 high and 2 intermediate. The facility has recorded high-severity violations in every inspection documented in the prior history going back to at least 2024.
The summer of 2024 stands out. On August 15, 2024, inspectors found 8 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate ones, the highest single-inspection count in the recent record. A follow-up visit on August 16 found 2 more high-severity violations. A third visit on August 19 found 1 more. Despite that three-inspection sequence in four days, the restaurant was never emergency-closed.
In the 24 inspections on record, the facility has never been ordered closed.
Still Open
A follow-up inspection on September 1, six days after the August 26 visit, found 1 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation. That represents a reduction from the prior week's findings, but a high-severity violation remained on the books.
Across eight inspections stretching back to early 2024, the facility has not recorded a single clean inspection. High-severity violations have appeared every time.
On August 26, with food from unknown sources in the kitchen, employees not reporting illness, toxic chemicals stored improperly, and no qualified manager present to oversee any of it, La Granja Chicken Steak and Seafood on South Orlando Drive kept its doors open and kept serving customers.
