CLERMONT, FL. A state inspector walked into Pepe's Cantina on West Minneola Avenue on May 13, 2026, and left with a citation sheet listing 8 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate ones. The restaurant was not closed.
Among the violations: no allergen awareness demonstrated by staff, no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, shellfish with no identification records, and parasite destruction procedures not followed for fish. Any one of those citations can send a customer to an emergency room. All four were present at the same time.
What Inspectors Found
The shellfish citation is among the most serious on the list. State records show the restaurant lacked adequate shell stock identification or records, meaning inspectors could not verify where the oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu came from.
That matters because shellfish are consumed raw or lightly cooked. If a customer gets sick from a contaminated batch, health officials need those records to trace the source and pull the product. Without them, an outbreak investigation starts from nothing.
The parasite destruction citation compounds that concern. Fish served raw or undercooked, including items common in Mexican seafood menus, must be frozen to specific temperatures for specific periods to kill parasites such as Anisakis. The inspector found those procedures were not being followed.
The allergen citation may be the most immediately dangerous finding for individual customers. State records show no allergen awareness was demonstrated by staff. Food allergies affect 32 million Americans, and a kitchen that cannot identify allergens in its dishes, or communicate them to customers, is a kitchen where a severe allergic reaction becomes a foreseeable outcome.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, meaning diners with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, elderly customers, and young children had no posted warning that certain menu items carried elevated risk.
Three more high-severity citations rounded out the list: employees not reporting illness symptoms, improper handwashing technique, and food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized. Together, those three violations describe a kitchen where pathogens can move from a sick employee to a cutting board to a customer's plate without interruption.
What These Violations Mean
The allergen and shellfish traceability violations are the kind that tend not to register as alarming until someone is already in an ambulance. A customer with a severe shellfish or peanut allergy who asks a server whether a dish is safe is relying entirely on the kitchen's awareness of its own ingredients. The citation at Pepe's Cantina indicates that awareness was not present on May 13.
Shellfish without identification records is a traceability failure with consequences that extend beyond one restaurant. State and federal health agencies use those records to conduct recalls when a contaminated harvest lot is identified. A restaurant that cannot produce them is a gap in that system.
The employee illness reporting citation is an outbreak risk in the most direct sense. Norovirus, one of the leading causes of foodborne illness in the United States, spreads rapidly when infected food workers handle food without disclosing symptoms. A kitchen where employees are not required or expected to report illness is a kitchen where a single sick cook can infect dozens of customers before anyone knows there is a problem.
Improper handwashing technique amplifies every other violation on the list. An employee who attempts to wash hands but does so incorrectly, skipping steps or cutting the process short, leaves pathogens on their hands regardless of intent. Combined with unsanitized food contact surfaces and time-temperature control failures, that creates multiple simultaneous pathways for bacterial transfer to food.
The Longer Record
The May 13 inspection was not an aberration. State records show Pepe's Cantina has been inspected 16 times and has accumulated 169 total violations across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern is consistent. An inspection on June 3, 2025, produced 8 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations. A follow-up the next day, June 4, still showed 3 high-severity citations. An inspection in November 2024 found 8 high-severity violations. The April 2024 inspection produced 11 high-severity citations and 4 intermediate ones, the highest single-visit count in the record.
December 2025 brought 7 high-severity violations. The May 13, 2026, inspection matched that same 8-high threshold seen twice before.
One day after the May 13 inspection, a follow-up visit on May 14 found just 1 high-severity violation and no intermediate ones. That rapid correction is noted in the record. What the record also shows is that similar corrections after prior inspections did not prevent the same categories of violations from reappearing at the next full inspection.
As of the most recent inspection on file, Pepe's Cantina on West Minneola Avenue remained open.