WINTER GARDEN, FL. A sandwich shop in downtown Winter Garden was cited for sourcing food from unapproved or unknown suppliers during a September 14 state inspection, a violation that means inspectors could not confirm whether the food on the premises had ever passed a federal safety check.
Pammie's Sammies on South Boyd Street walked away from that inspection with seven high-severity violations and one intermediate citation. The state did not close it.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source citation is the kind of violation that makes outbreak investigations harder after the fact. When food cannot be traced to a licensed, inspected supplier, there is no chain of custody to follow if a customer gets sick.
Inspectors also cited the shop for inadequate shell stock identification and records. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are among the highest-risk foods in any kitchen because they are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without proper tags and receiving logs, there is no way to identify the harvest location or date if an illness surfaces later.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food. That is a direct chemical poisoning risk, not a paperwork issue.
The shop also had no demonstrated allergen awareness. Staff could not show inspectors that they understood or could communicate the presence of common allergens in the food they were serving.
Food contact surfaces were cited for not being properly cleaned or sanitized, and the shop had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items. Pregnant customers, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system are the people that advisory is designed to protect.
Rounding out the high-severity list: no written employee health policy. Without one, there is no formal protocol to keep a sick worker out of the kitchen.
What These Violations Mean
The unapproved food source violation is not a technicality. USDA and FDA inspections at licensed suppliers are the primary checkpoints that catch Listeria, Salmonella, and other pathogens before food reaches a kitchen. Food that bypasses those checkpoints arrives without that screening.
The allergen violation is acutely dangerous in a sandwich environment. Sandwiches routinely contain wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, and tree nuts. Food allergies affect an estimated 32 million Americans, and allergic reactions send roughly 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. A shop where staff cannot demonstrate allergen awareness is a shop where a customer cannot get a reliable answer about what is in their food.
The absence of an employee health policy compounds every other risk on the list. Norovirus, one of the most common foodborne illness pathogens, spreads directly from infected food workers to customers. A written health policy is the mechanism that keeps a sick employee from showing up and working a sandwich line. Pammie's Sammies had none on record as of September 14.
The improperly stored chemicals finding, paired with unsanitized food contact surfaces, means that both biological and chemical contamination pathways were open at the same time during this inspection.
The Longer Record
This was not an aberration. Pammie's Sammies has accumulated 144 total violations across 20 inspections on record, and the September 14 visit produced the highest single-inspection high-severity count in the available history.
The shop has drawn high-severity violations in seven of the eight most recent inspections with any violations at all. In October 2024, inspectors cited four high-severity violations. A year later, in October 2025, they returned and found four more. By May 2026, the count had risen to three high-severity violations. The September 2026 inspection pushed that number to seven.
Two inspections in the recent record, June 2024 and November 2024, produced zero high-severity or intermediate violations. That means the shop has demonstrated it can pass. It simply has not done so consistently, and the trend since mid-2024 runs in the wrong direction.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. In roughly two years of documented high-severity violations, including citations for food sourcing, food contact surface sanitation, and now allergen awareness, the state has not issued an emergency order.
Still Open
After the September 14 inspection, Pammie's Sammies remained open for business.
Seven high-severity violations, including food from an unverified source, toxic chemicals near food, no allergen training, and no sick-worker policy, were not enough to trigger a closure.
The shop's full inspection file shows 144 violations across 20 visits. The most recent inspection is the worst one in that record.
