WAUCHULA, FL. State inspectors visiting The Panda Rest on South 6th Avenue in May found toxic chemicals stored improperly near food, shellfish with no identification records, food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, and no written employee health policy in place. Six of the ten violations documented on May 14 were classified high-severity. The restaurant remained open.
The shellfish violation drew particular concern. Inspectors cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification and records, meaning oysters, clams, or mussels on the premises could not be traced to their source. If a customer became ill, there would be no way to determine where the shellfish came from or whether others were at risk from the same harvest.
Toxic chemicals were also found improperly stored or labeled near food. That violation carries an acute risk: a mislabeled chemical or one placed too close to food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, and the resulting poisoning can occur with no warning and no obvious sign in the food itself.
What Inspectors Found
The food contact surface violation compounds the handwashing citation. Inspectors documented that surfaces coming into direct contact with food had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, and separately cited employees for improper handwashing technique. Together, those two violations describe a kitchen where pathogens can travel from hands to surfaces to food with little interruption.
The restaurant also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. That matters because the shellfish traceability violation was cited in the same inspection. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised have no way of knowing they are eating high-risk foods if neither the menu nor the premises tells them so.
Inspectors additionally found inadequate cooling and cold holding equipment, single-use items being reused, toilet facilities that were inadequate or improperly maintained, and equipment in poor enough repair that bacteria can harbor in cracks and corroded surfaces.
What These Violations Mean
The employee health policy violation is the kind that can make every other food safety measure irrelevant. Without a written policy requiring sick workers to stay home, a single employee working through a norovirus infection can expose everyone who eats there that day. Norovirus accounts for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and food service workers are one of its most efficient transmission routes.
The shellfish traceability violation is especially serious at a restaurant that serves raw or lightly cooked shellfish. State and federal rules require shell stock tags to be kept on file so that, if someone gets sick, investigators can trace the product back to the harvest bed and pull it from other restaurants. Without those records, a contaminated batch cannot be tracked and recalled.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces are among the most direct routes for bacterial transfer in a kitchen. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that carry residue from one food item to the next can spread Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria to foods that will never be cooked again before serving.
Inadequate cold holding equipment means food may be spending time in the temperature range between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, where bacterial populations can double every 20 minutes. That risk does not disappear when the food looks and smells normal.
The Longer Record
The Panda Rest: Inspection History
The Panda Rest has 28 inspections on record and 285 total violations. That is not the profile of a restaurant working through isolated problems. Every inspection in the available history going back to 2023 has produced at least four high-severity violations. The February 2025 visit produced ten.
The restaurant was emergency-closed once, in February 2021, for roach activity. Inspectors allowed it to reopen the next day. In the years since, the violations have continued at roughly the same pace and severity, with inspectors returning multiple times in the same month on at least three separate occasions in 2025.
The May 2026 inspection found six high-severity violations. The restaurant was not closed.