DELAND, FL. State inspectors walked into Oudom on North Woodland Boulevard on August 11 and found food coming from sources that had bypassed federal safety inspections entirely, no written policy requiring sick employees to stay home, and no evidence that fish served to customers had been treated to destroy parasites. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection logged 7 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations in a single visit. Oudom remained open throughout.
The Violations
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. Food from unapproved sources has not passed through USDA or FDA safety checks, meaning there is no supply chain record if a customer gets sick and no way to trace a contaminated batch back to its origin.
The shellfish violation compounds that concern. Inspectors found inadequate shell stock identification records, meaning inspectors could not verify where the shellfish served at Oudom came from or when it was harvested. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked, making traceability critical.
The parasite destruction citation is separate and specific to fish. Without documented freezing or cooking protocols sufficient to kill parasites, fish served at Oudom could carry Anisakis or tapeworm larvae into a customer's meal.
On top of the sourcing and parasite concerns, inspectors found that food contact surfaces had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, and that multi-use utensils showed the same deficiency. Surfaces and utensils that carry bacteria from one food preparation cycle to the next are a direct cross-contamination pathway.
No person in charge was present or performing duties during the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and no illness reporting is not a paperwork problem. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently when an infected food worker handles food without knowing they are required to report symptoms. Without a written policy at Oudom, there is no mechanism to keep a sick employee out of the kitchen.
The unapproved food source violation means that some portion of what was served at Oudom on August 11 arrived outside the regulated supply chain. If a customer became ill after eating there, investigators would have no purchase records, no distributor logs, and no harvest tags to follow.
The shellfish traceability failure is its own category of risk. State and federal law requires shellfish dealers to maintain tags identifying the harvest location and date for every batch received. Those tags exist specifically because shellfish-related illness outbreaks, including hepatitis A and Vibrio infections, require rapid source identification to prevent additional cases. Inspectors found that documentation was inadequate at Oudom.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly sanitized can transfer Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria between raw and ready-to-eat foods. Paired with improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, the conditions inspectors documented on August 11 created multiple simultaneous pathways for bacterial transfer.
The Longer Record
August's inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Oudom has been inspected 51 times and has accumulated 478 total violations across its history. The restaurant has been emergency-closed five times.
Three of those closures involved rodent activity. Inspectors shut Oudom down for rodents in May 2023, again in July 2023, and again in November 2024. The November 2024 closure also cited a sewage issue. Each time, the restaurant reopened within a day.
The inspection record from the past year shows a persistent high-severity violation pattern. Inspectors found 10 high-severity violations in a single visit on January 21, 2025, followed by a follow-up visit the next day that still logged 2 high-severity violations. In November 2024, the visit that triggered the emergency closure logged 8 high-severity violations. December 2025 brought 6 more high-severity violations. The July 2025 inspection logged zero violations of either type, but the August 2026 visit reversed that entirely.
The one clean inspection in a year of otherwise serious citations did not hold.
Still Open
State inspectors documented food from an unapproved source, no parasite destruction protocol, no employee illness policy, no active managerial oversight, and unsanitized food contact surfaces at Oudom on August 11, 2026. They counted 7 high-severity violations before they finished.
The restaurant was not closed.
