FORT MYERS, FL. State inspectors visiting Pickle and Pub Restaurant Inc. on Old McGregor Boulevard on April 23 found food from unapproved or unknown sources on the premises, a violation that means customers could have eaten food that bypassed every federal safety inspection in the supply chain.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited the restaurant for having no written employee health policy and for employees not reporting illness symptoms. Those two violations travel together: without a written policy, workers have no formal obligation to report when they are sick, and without that reporting, a Norovirus-carrying employee can work an entire shift touching food that reaches every customer in the building.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. The inspector additionally found that the restaurant was using time as a public health control without doing so properly, meaning food was allowed to sit in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, without the tracking required to ensure it was discarded before it became hazardous.
No consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods appeared on the menu. That notice exists specifically to warn pregnant women, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system that certain items carry elevated risk.
Two intermediate violations rounded out the inspection: multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, and inadequate cooling or cold-holding equipment.
What These Violations Mean
Food from an unapproved or unknown source is among the hardest violations to walk back once harm is done. If a customer gets sick, investigators trace illness to a supply chain. When that chain is unknown, there is no path to a recall, no way to identify other affected customers, and no way to stop additional product from reaching other tables.
The paired employee illness violations carry a different kind of urgency. Norovirus spreads through contaminated food handled by sick workers and can sicken dozens of people from a single shift. A written health policy is not paperwork for its own sake; it is the mechanism that gives a sick worker both the instruction and the permission to stay home. Without one, the restaurant has no documented system for keeping ill employees out of the kitchen.
Inadequate cold-holding equipment compounds the time-control violation. If the equipment cannot reliably hold food at or below 41 degrees, and the restaurant is also not properly tracking time as an alternative control, food can move through the danger zone without anyone catching it. Bacteria including Salmonella and Staph aureus can reach dangerous concentrations in food held at unsafe temperatures for as little as two hours.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils develop bacterial biofilms that sanitizers cannot fully penetrate once established. Those biofilms become a persistent contamination source across every service that follows.
The Longer Record
The April 23 inspection was not an anomaly. Pickle and Pub has accumulated 243 total violations across 29 inspections on record, a history that shows repeated high-severity findings across multiple years.
The most recent prior inspection, in October 2025, turned up 2 high-severity violations. The inspection before that, in July 2025, produced 7 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations. In July 2023, the same restaurant drew 6 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations in a single visit. The pattern of significant findings, followed by cleaner inspections, followed by significant findings again, has repeated across at least three years of records.
The restaurant was emergency-closed once before, in May 2020, for rodent activity. It reopened the following day. That closure is the only one in the record. The six high-severity violations documented on April 23 did not produce a second one.
Still Open
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when violations pose an immediate threat to public health. Rodent activity in May 2020 met that threshold at Pickle and Pub. Six high-severity violations in April 2026, including food from an unknown source and no system to keep sick employees out of food preparation, did not.
The restaurant on Old McGregor Boulevard remained open after the April 23 inspection.