JACKSONVILLE, FL. State inspectors walked into Salsas Mexican Restaurant at 13121 City Center Blvd. on September 28 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning customers had no way to know whether what they ate had ever passed a federal safety inspection. That violation alone carries the risk of Listeria, Salmonella, and other pathogens that standard supply-chain oversight is designed to catch. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection turned up 10 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations in total.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source citation was not the only finding that put customers at direct risk. Inspectors also documented that food was not cooked to required minimum temperatures, a violation directly linked to Salmonella survival in poultry. No consumer advisory was posted to warn diners who might be ordering raw or undercooked items.
Toxic substances were found improperly identified, stored, or used. That violation creates the immediate possibility of chemical contamination in food or on surfaces that contact food.
Inspectors noted that no person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties. They also found that employees were not reporting illness symptoms, that handwashing facilities were inadequate, and that hand-washing technique among staff was improper. Those three violations exist on the same chain: if the infrastructure for hand hygiene is broken and no manager is enforcing it, contamination from sick workers reaches food with nothing to stop it.
Shell stock identification records were inadequate, meaning inspectors could not verify the origin of shellfish on the premises. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned, and single-use items were being reused.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of unapproved food sourcing and inadequate cooking temperatures is among the most serious pairings an inspector can document. Food that bypasses USDA and FDA supply-chain oversight has no verified safety history. If that same food is then undercooked, any pathogens it carries survive to the plate.
The illness-reporting failure at Salsas compounds the risk. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads most aggressively when infected workers handle food without disclosing symptoms. The absence of a functioning manager on the inspection date means no one was positioned to send a sick employee home.
Improper toxic substance storage is a separate category of danger entirely. Cleaning chemicals stored near or above food preparation areas can contaminate ingredients directly, with no cooking step capable of neutralizing the exposure.
The shellfish traceability violation matters most when something goes wrong. Without shell stock tags identifying the harvest location and date, public health investigators cannot trace an outbreak back to its source or pull contaminated product from circulation. At Salsas, that traceability was missing.
The Longer Record
Salsas Mexican Restaurant: Inspection History
The September 28 inspection was the fifteenth on record for this location. Across those 15 inspections, the facility has accumulated 220 total violations.
The pattern holds across nearly every visit. Of the eight inspections with available violation data, seven produced high-severity citation counts of five or more. The single clean inspection, on January 30, 2024, came four days after a visit that found nine high-severity violations. It is the only inspection in the available record that produced zero high or intermediate violations.
The September 2026 inspection matched the violation count from March 2026 exactly: 10 high-severity, 3 intermediate. The same totals, six months apart. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
It remained open after the September 28 inspection as well.
