OCALA, FL. A state inspector walked into Roma Italian Restaurant at 2775 NW 49th Ave. on September 17 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning no one could trace where it came from or whether it had passed federal safety inspections. The restaurant was not closed.
That single violation, food from an unapproved source, appeared alongside six other high-severity citations and three intermediate violations. Ten violations in one inspection, and the restaurant continued serving customers.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited the restaurant for having no employee health policy and for employees not reporting symptoms of illness. Those two violations exist side by side: the restaurant had no written system to require sick workers to stay home, and workers were not reporting symptoms anyway.
Handwashing facilities were flagged as inadequate. Without functional handwashing infrastructure, the requirement to wash hands is effectively unenforceable.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and equipment that touch everything served to customers, were found not properly cleaned or sanitized. The inspector also noted a missing consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, which means diners who are pregnant, elderly, or immunocompromised had no warning that certain menu items carried elevated risk.
Improper sewage or wastewater disposal rounded out the intermediate violations, a citation that points to potential fecal contamination risk throughout the facility.
No person in charge was present or performing duties during the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is one of the hardest to dismiss as paperwork. When a restaurant cannot document where its food came from, there is no traceable supply chain if a customer gets sick. USDA and FDA inspections exist to screen for Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before food reaches a kitchen. Food that bypasses that system arrives without any of those checks.
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness is a documented outbreak pathway. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million infections in the United States each year, spreads efficiently when sick food workers handle food without restriction. A written health policy is the mechanism that requires workers to disclose symptoms before their shift. Roma had neither the policy nor the reporting practice.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces compound that risk. Bacterial biofilms develop on inadequately sanitized surfaces within 24 hours and resist standard cleaning once established. A surface that looks clean can still transfer bacteria to every item prepared on it.
The sewage citation carries its own gravity. Improper wastewater disposal in a food preparation environment creates a direct route for fecal contamination to reach food, surfaces, and staff.
The Longer Record
Roma Italian Restaurant has 33 inspections on record and 262 total violations documented across its history. That volume does not describe a restaurant that stumbled into a bad week.
The inspection record from the past two years shows a facility that has repeatedly accumulated high-severity violations, cleared them under follow-up pressure, and then accumulated them again. On April 28, 2025, an inspector cited the restaurant for 13 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations, the worst single-inspection total in the available record. A follow-up on September 29, 2025 found 8 high and 3 intermediate violations. The very next day, September 30, a second follow-up showed zero high and zero intermediate violations. That pattern, heavy violations, rapid clearance for re-inspection, then violations again months later, appears across multiple inspection cycles.
Roma Italian Restaurant: Recent Inspection Pattern
January 30, 2026 brought 9 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. The September 17, 2026 inspection added 7 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations to that count.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its 33 inspections on record. After the September 17 visit, with food from an unapproved source, no illness reporting system, inadequate handwashing, and improperly sanitized food contact surfaces all documented in the same inspection, it remained open.
