LEESBURG, FL. State inspectors walked into Sams Seafood and Chicken on N 14th Street on August 25 and found food from an unapproved or unknown source, a violation that means no one can trace where that food came from, what safety inspections it passed, or who to call if customers get sick.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. Food that arrives outside the regulated supply chain, through USDA and FDA-inspected distributors, carries no guarantee it was handled safely at any prior point. If a customer gets sick, investigators have no chain of custody to follow.
Three of the six high-severity violations that day clustered around a single, compounding risk: workers who may be sick, with no policy requiring them to report symptoms, and with improper handwashing technique even when they did attempt to wash. That combination is a direct transmission route for Norovirus, which spreads person-to-person through contaminated hands and surfaces and is responsible for the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings.
Inspectors also found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food. That violation can cause acute poisoning if a chemical contaminates a surface, a utensil, or food itself, and mislabeled containers mean workers may not recognize the hazard.
The menu at Sams includes seafood and chicken dishes, some of which may be served raw or undercooked. The missing consumer advisory means customers with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, the elderly, and young children had no written notice that certain items carry elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The employee illness violations at Sams are not paperwork failures. The absence of a written health policy and the failure of employees to report symptoms are, according to federal food safety data, the leading cause of multi-victim restaurant outbreaks. A single worker with Norovirus, handling food without reporting illness and without washing hands correctly, can expose dozens of customers in a single shift.
Improper handwashing technique compounds that risk. Inspectors do not cite this violation when a worker skips the sink entirely. They cite it when a worker goes through the motion but does it wrong, leaving pathogens on the hands that a customer will never know were there.
The unapproved food source violation carries a different but equally serious risk. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli are among the pathogens that regulated supply chains are designed to screen for. Food that bypasses those inspections arrives with no documentation and no accountability. At a seafood restaurant, where raw fish and shellfish already carry elevated bacterial risk, sourcing from an unknown supplier removes one of the few safeguards between the kitchen and the customer.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, cited as an intermediate violation, add another layer. Bacterial biofilms form on inadequately cleaned surfaces within 24 hours and are resistant to standard sanitizers once established. Utensils used across multiple food items become a transfer point for whatever pathogens are present.
The Longer Record
The August 25 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 26 inspections on file for Sams Seafood and Chicken, with 224 total violations documented across that history.
Every one of the eight most recent inspections on record, dating to May 2023, produced at least five high-severity violations. Three of those inspections produced seven high-severity violations each, including visits in January 2026, July 2024, and September and May of 2023. The August 2026 inspection, with six high-severity violations, sits in the middle of that range.
The pattern across those inspections is consistent. Employee illness reporting failures, food sourcing concerns, and handwashing violations appear repeatedly in the record. These are not one-time oversights caught and corrected. They are citations that recur across multiple inspection cycles, across multiple years.
Sams has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record. Despite 224 documented violations and a string of high-severity citations that has not broken in at least three years, the facility has remained open after every inspection.
Still Open
The August 25 inspection ended the same way the previous eight did. Inspectors documented the violations, six of them high-severity, and left. No emergency closure order was issued.
Sams Seafood and Chicken on N 14th Street in Leesburg was open for business.
