SEFFNER, FL. Martha's Family Restaurant on East Highway 92 had no approved potable water supply when state inspectors arrived on July 15, 2026. That single violation, carrying the risk of E. coli, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Legionella exposure in a working kitchen, was one of six high-severity citations logged that day. The restaurant was not closed.
The July 15 inspection turned up a total of 11 violations, six of them high-severity and five intermediate. Inspectors documented a facility where the most fundamental safety infrastructure had broken down simultaneously: no safe water, no manager performing oversight duties, no employee health policy, and food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized.
What Inspectors Found
The absence of an approved potable water supply is among the most serious violations a food establishment can receive. Water runs through everything in a commercial kitchen: handwashing, dish sanitizing, food preparation, ice production. Without a confirmed safe supply, every one of those processes becomes a potential contamination point.
The sewage disposal violation compounds that picture. Improper wastewater handling raises the possibility of fecal contamination spreading through surfaces and equipment, and it was documented in the same inspection where handwashing technique was also cited as inadequate.
No person in charge was present or performing duties. Inspectors also found that the restaurant had no written employee health policy and that employees were not reporting illness symptoms. Those three violations together describe a facility with no mechanism to catch sick workers before they handle food.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no potable water and improper sewage disposal is not a paperwork problem. Non-potable water can carry Cryptosporidium and Giardia, both of which are resistant to standard sanitizers and cause severe gastrointestinal illness. Legionella, also associated with contaminated water systems, can cause pneumonia. A kitchen operating without a verified safe water source is using an unknown substance to rinse produce, fill ice machines, and wash the hands of the people preparing meals.
The employee illness violations carry a separate and direct threat. Norovirus is responsible for approximately 20 million illnesses in the United States annually, and food workers who either don't know they're required to report symptoms, or who work in a kitchen with no policy requiring them to, are among the primary vectors. At Martha's Family Restaurant, inspectors found all three conditions present at once: no health policy, no reporting, and improper handwashing technique that would leave pathogens on hands even when workers made an attempt to wash.
Food contact surfaces that have not been properly cleaned or sanitized, combined with multi-use utensils that were also improperly cleaned, create a sustained cross-contamination environment. Bacterial biofilms can form on unclean surfaces within 24 hours. Every plate, cutting board, or prep surface becomes a transfer point.
The toilet facility violation closes the loop. Inadequate restroom infrastructure discourages employees from washing their hands at all, which makes the handwashing technique citation almost secondary.
The Longer Record
Martha's Family Restaurant: Inspection History
Martha's Family Restaurant has 33 inspections on record and 255 total violations accumulated across that history. That is not a facility that has occasionally stumbled. It is a facility with a documented, sustained pattern of serious citations.
The restaurant has been emergency-closed twice, both times in July, both times for pest activity. The July 2024 closure was for flies. The July 2026 closure, on the same day as the 11-violation inspection, was for roaches and flies combined. Both times, the restaurant reopened within 24 hours.
Four of the last six inspections before July 15 each produced at least four high-severity violations. The only inspection in that stretch that showed zero high-severity citations was in November 2024. The pattern reasserted itself within three months.
The follow-up inspection conducted July 16, the day after the most recent 11-violation visit, still found two high-severity violations and two intermediate ones.
Martha's Family Restaurant was not emergency-closed on July 15 because of the 11 violations documented that day. The closure that did happen was triggered by the roach and fly activity found during the same visit. The violations involving water, sewage, illness reporting, and handwashing were not, on their own, enough to shut the doors.
