ORLANDO, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Panino's Pizza & Pasta on S. Orange Ave and found food coming from an unapproved or unknown source, a violation that means at least some of what the restaurant was serving had bypassed every federal safety inspection designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before it reaches a plate.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented on April 10. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source violation was not the only finding that raised direct illness risk. Inspectors also cited food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, meaning food was leaving the kitchen without the heat treatment that kills Salmonella in poultry and other pathogens in proteins.
Shellfish were part of the picture as well. Inspectors documented inadequate shell stock identification and records, which means oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu could not be traced to a certified harvest source if a customer became ill.
Three separate handwashing violations were cited in the same inspection. Employees were found to be washing inadequately, using improper technique, and the restaurant had no written employee health policy, meaning there was no formal protocol to keep sick workers out of the kitchen. That combination, inadequate washing, wrong technique, and no illness reporting structure, creates a direct and layered pathway for disease transmission.
Food contact surfaces were also found improperly cleaned and sanitized, and multi-use utensils had not been properly cleaned. Inspectors additionally noted inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The food from an unapproved source violation is one of the most serious a restaurant can receive, and it is not a paperwork technicality. When food bypasses USDA or FDA inspection, there is no chain of custody if someone gets sick. A customer who develops symptoms after eating at Panino's in April would have no reliable way to trace the ingredient that made them ill, and neither would public health investigators.
The undercooked food violation compounds that risk directly. Salmonella survives in poultry cooked below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Combined with food of unknown origin, the April inspection documented a scenario where uninspected ingredients were being served without the temperature safeguard that serves as a last line of defense.
The three handwashing violations deserve to be read together, not separately. Inspectors found that employees were not washing when they should, were not washing correctly when they did, and that no written health policy existed to address what happens when an employee is sick. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads almost entirely through this exact failure chain.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and utensils add a cross-contamination layer on top of all of it. Bacterial biofilms can establish on cutting boards and utensils within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning, and standard rinsing does not remove them.
The Longer Record
Panino's Pizza & Pasta: Recent Inspection History
The April 2026 inspection was not an outlier. State records show 30 inspections at this address with 241 total violations documented over the facility's history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The January 28, 2026 inspection, just ten weeks before April's visit, produced an identical tally: 7 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate violations. The August 2024 inspection was worse, with 8 high-severity violations. The facility has logged at least 4 high-severity violations in five of the last eight inspections on record.
That pattern means the April findings were not a bad week. They were consistent with what inspectors have documented at this location across multiple years, across multiple inspection cycles, and across a cumulative record of 241 violations.
The restaurant remained open after the April 10 inspection.