OKEECHOBEE, FL. A state inspector walked into San Diego Mexican Restaurant Y Taqueria Inc on SW Park Street on July 29 and found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, a finding that state health data links directly to pathogen survival, including Salmonella in poultry that lives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The restaurant was not closed.
The July 29 visit produced six high-severity violations and one intermediate violation. That total placed it among the more serious single-inspection records in Okeechobee County this year.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation was the most direct threat on the list. Food that does not reach minimum internal temperatures can carry live Salmonella, E. coli, and other pathogens to the customer's plate.
Alongside it, the inspector cited employees not reporting symptoms of illness. That violation means workers who may have been sick were handling food without triggering any internal reporting process. It is the condition that regulators and epidemiologists consistently identify as the starting point for multi-victim outbreaks.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep tables, and other surfaces that touch food directly can transfer bacteria from one item to the next if cleaning protocols break down between uses.
The inspector also found inadequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish sold in Florida restaurants must carry tags that trace them to a certified harvesting source, so that if a customer becomes ill, public health investigators can trace the product back to its origin. Those records were not in order.
No consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked menu items. Florida law requires restaurants to notify customers when dishes are served raw or undercooked, specifically so that elderly diners, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems can make informed decisions. There was no such notice.
The person in charge was either absent or not performing supervisory duties. The intermediate violation involved multi-use utensils that had not been properly cleaned.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of undercooked food and employees not reporting illness is the pairing that food safety investigators most often find at the origin of restaurant-linked outbreaks. Salmonella in undercooked poultry survives at temperatures below 165 degrees and does not change the appearance, smell, or texture of the meat. A customer has no way to detect it.
The illness-reporting failure compounds that risk. If a food worker is symptomatic with norovirus or another pathogen and there is no system in place requiring them to report it, they remain on the line. Norovirus can be transmitted through food contact with a single infected worker and can sicken dozens of customers from a single shift.
The shell stock traceability violation adds a separate layer of risk. Oysters, clams, and mussels are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked, and they filter large volumes of water, concentrating whatever pathogens or toxins are present in their harvest area. The tagging system exists so that when someone gets sick, investigators can pull the product back to its source within hours. Without those records, that chain breaks.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning. Those biofilms protect bacteria from standard sanitizing agents and can persist across multiple service periods.
The Longer Record
The July 29 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 18 inspections on file for this location and 103 total violations across that history.
The most recent follow-up visits tell the story in sequence. On July 30, the day after the inspection that produced six high-severity violations, a follow-up visit found five high-severity violations. A second follow-up on August 3 found two more high-severity violations. The restaurant has not been emergency-closed at any point in its inspection record.
Going further back, the pattern holds. The July 2024 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and one intermediate, the single highest one-day count in the available history. The August 2025 visit produced four high-severity violations and two intermediate. The December 2025 visit produced three high-severity and two intermediate.
The one exception in the record is a May 2025 inspection that found zero violations. That visit was conducted the same day as another inspection that found five high-severity violations and two intermediate, suggesting the two records may reflect different inspection moments within a single day rather than a genuine clean pass.
San Diego Mexican Restaurant Y Taqueria has accumulated 103 violations across 18 inspections without a single emergency closure. After the six high-severity violations documented on July 29, including undercooked food and employees not reporting illness, the inspector left and the restaurant remained open for service.
