ORLANDO, FL. In April 2026, state inspectors walked into Ming's Bistro at 1212 Woodward St. and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers being served to customers who had no way of knowing it.
That single violation, buried among 13 others rated high-severity, means the restaurant was obtaining ingredients that had never passed a USDA or FDA safety inspection. If a customer got sick, there would be no supply chain to trace, no lot number to pull, no way to find the source.
The inspection was April 10. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The full list from April 10 ran to 14 high-severity citations and 4 intermediate ones. Inspectors found that the person in charge was either absent or not performing duties, which state data links to a threefold increase in critical violations at a given establishment. No written employee health policy existed. Workers were not reporting illness symptoms.
Those three violations together describe a kitchen with no management oversight, no formal system to keep sick employees away from food, and no mechanism to catch either problem.
Inspectors also cited inadequate handwashing facilities and improper hand and arm washing technique. The two violations compound each other: even when employees attempted to wash their hands, the technique left pathogens behind, and the infrastructure to do it properly was not in place.
Parasite destruction procedures were not being followed. For a restaurant serving fish, that means parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm can survive to the plate if fish is not properly frozen or cooked. Shellfish identification records were also inadequate, meaning oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu could not be traced to their harvest source. Inspectors also found food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, and toxic chemicals stored improperly near food areas.
A consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods was absent. No allergen awareness was demonstrated by staff.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of unapproved food sourcing and inadequate shellfish records is particularly serious. Food from uninspected sources can harbor Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli without any visible sign of spoilage. Shellfish harvested from contaminated waters and served without traceability records removes the only tool health officials have to identify an outbreak source after people get sick.
The employee illness violations carry a different but equally direct risk. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million infections in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently through food handled by a sick worker. Without a written health policy, there is no standard requiring employees to report symptoms, and without reporting, no supervisor can pull a sick worker off the line.
Food not cooked to required minimum temperatures means Salmonella in poultry can survive to the plate. Salmonella is one of the leading causes of foodborne illness hospitalizations in the country. The failure to follow parasite destruction procedures at a restaurant that handles fish adds a separate biological threat that heat alone does not always address.
Toxic chemicals stored near food represent a more immediate hazard. Mislabeled or improperly stored cleaning agents can contaminate food directly, causing acute poisoning that can send customers to the emergency room within hours of a meal.
The Longer Record
The April 10 inspection did not happen in isolation. Two days earlier, on April 8, inspectors had cited Ming's Bistro for 15 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate ones. That visit was not the restaurant's worst stretch either. The facility has 29 inspections on record and 515 total violations documented across its history.
In October 2025, inspectors found 8 high-severity violations. In January 2025, another 8 high-severity citations. The summer of 2024 saw back-to-back inspections on August 27 and August 28, each producing 6 or 7 high-severity violations. The pattern across nearly two years is consistent: double-digit or near-double-digit high-severity counts on almost every visit.
The one exception in recent history was March 2024, when inspectors found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That inspection stands alone in the record.
The restaurant was emergency-closed once before, in January 2022, after inspectors found rodent activity. It reopened the following day. The closure did not interrupt the accumulation of high-severity violations in subsequent years.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when inspectors determine an imminent hazard to public health exists. On April 10, 2026, state inspectors documented 14 high-severity violations at Ming's Bistro, including food from unapproved sources, no employee illness policy, parasite control failures, improper chemical storage, and food not cooked to safe temperatures.
The restaurant was not closed.
Customers who ate at Ming's Bistro after the April 8 inspection, and before or after the April 10 inspection, did so without any public notice that inspectors had found those conditions on two consecutive visits.
The record stands at 515 violations across 29 inspections. The doors stayed open.