JACKSONVILLE, FL. State inspectors walked into Pepes Hacienda and Restaurant on Merrill Road on August 24 and found food coming from an unapproved or unknown source, a violation that means the restaurant was serving ingredients that had bypassed federal safety inspections entirely.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source violation is serious on its own. When a restaurant cannot document where its ingredients came from, health officials have no chain of records to follow if a customer gets sick.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant twice for handwashing failures: once for inadequate handwashing overall, and separately for improper hand and arm washing technique. Both violations were flagged as high severity. That means inspectors observed employees either skipping handwashing or performing it incorrectly, two distinct problems documented in the same visit.
The shell stock identification violation adds another layer. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are high-risk foods that are often consumed raw or only lightly cooked. Without proper tagging and records on the harvest location and date, there is no way to trace a shellfish-related illness back to the source if customers become sick.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. The proximity of chemicals to food preparation areas creates a direct contamination risk, and mislabeled containers have historically been a cause of acute poisoning incidents in restaurant settings.
No consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods. Inspectors also found that no person in charge was present or performing their duties, and that employees were not reporting illness symptoms.
Inspectors also cited two intermediate violations: improper sewage or wastewater disposal, and multi-use utensils not properly cleaned.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting failure is worth understanding plainly. A food worker who is sick with norovirus, salmonella, or another pathogen and does not report symptoms can contaminate every dish they handle. Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants, can be transmitted by a single infected worker touching food with unwashed hands.
The dual handwashing violations compound that risk directly. If employees at Pepes Hacienda were both skipping handwashing and performing it incorrectly when they did attempt it, pathogens could have been transferred to food throughout the shift.
The sewage and wastewater disposal violation is not a paperwork issue. Improper sewage handling inside a food preparation facility creates the possibility of fecal contamination reaching food contact surfaces. Combined with the improperly cleaned utensils, which can harbor bacterial biofilms that survive routine rinsing, the conditions inspectors documented represent multiple simultaneous contamination pathways in one kitchen.
The absence of a person in charge performing active oversight ties these failures together. CDC data indicates that establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of managed facilities. Every other violation on this list is more likely to occur, and to go unaddressed, when no one with authority is watching.
The Longer Record
Pepes Hacienda has four inspections on record. Across all of them, inspectors have documented 47 total violations.
The pattern does not suggest the August 24 inspection was an anomaly. The April 2026 inspection, four months before the August visit, produced seven high-severity violations and one intermediate. The September 2025 inspection before that yielded five high-severity and two intermediate violations.
A follow-up inspection on September 2, 2026, the week after the August 24 visit, found two high-severity violations and one intermediate. That is an improvement in raw numbers, but it means high-severity violations were still present after inspectors had already flagged eight of them.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history. The violations have included food sourcing problems, handwashing failures, and management gaps across multiple consecutive inspections, but none of those findings triggered a closure order.
Still Open
After the August 24 inspection, with eight high-severity violations on the record sheet, Pepes Hacienda on Merrill Road remained open for business.
