ODESSA, FL. Back in April 2026, a state inspector walked into Santelli Pizza and Pasta on State Road 54 and found a restaurant serving raw and undercooked seafood with no documentation that parasites had been destroyed, no consumer advisory posted to warn diners, and no shellfish identification records that would allow health officials to trace a contaminated batch if someone got sick.
That was one inspection. It produced six high-severity violations and one intermediate violation. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite-destruction failure and the missing shellfish records appeared together, and that combination is significant. A restaurant serving oysters, clams, mussels, or raw fish is required to keep shellfish tags on file so that if a customer falls ill, investigators can identify the harvest lot and pull it from other kitchens. No tags means no trail.
The parasite-destruction violation compounds that risk. Fish served raw or lightly cooked, including salmon and certain preparations common on Italian menus, must be frozen to specific temperatures for specific durations to kill parasites including Anisakis, a roundworm that can embed in the stomach lining. Without documented procedures, there is no way to verify that step happened.
The restaurant also had no consumer advisory posted, meaning diners had no way to know they were eating food that carried elevated risk.
Employees were cited for not reporting illness symptoms, and for improper handwashing technique. These two violations appeared on the same inspection. A sick employee who does not report symptoms and does not wash hands correctly is a direct transmission route for norovirus and other pathogens to every plate leaving the kitchen.
The person in charge was either absent or not performing duties. State inspectors also cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, an intermediate violation that carries its own contamination risk.
What These Violations Mean
The shellfish traceability and parasite-destruction violations are worth dwelling on because they are not paperwork problems. They are the documentation that makes a response possible after someone gets sick. When a shellfish-related illness cluster is reported, health officials trace backward through harvest tags to identify the source lot and remove it from circulation. Without those records at Santelli, that chain breaks entirely.
Parasite destruction is a cooking and handling step, not a formality. Anisakis larvae are not killed by lime juice, light cooking, or salt curing. They require either thorough cooking to 145 degrees or freezing at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit for seven days, or minus 31 degrees for 15 hours. A restaurant that cannot document it followed those procedures cannot confirm the fish it served was safe.
The illness-reporting and handwashing violations are acutely dangerous in combination. Norovirus is shed in enormous quantities before symptoms become obvious, and it survives on surfaces for days. Improper handwashing technique, even when an employee attempts to wash, leaves pathogens on the hands. Food workers who do not report symptoms may not know they are contagious, or may feel pressure not to call out. Either way, the result is the same.
The absence of a manager actively performing duties ties all of this together. CDC data cited in the inspection record indicates that establishments without active managerial control have three times as many critical violations. On April 15, 2026, Santelli had six high-severity violations and no documented managerial presence to catch any of them.
The Longer Record
The April 15 inspection was not the first time Santelli drew serious findings. State records show seven inspections on file for the restaurant, producing 35 total violations. Every single inspection in that history included at least two high-severity citations.
The pattern runs back to November 2023, when inspectors logged two high-severity violations. By January 2025, that count had risen to three. By November 2025, it was five. The April 15, 2026 inspection, with six high-severity violations, was the worst single visit in the restaurant's documented record.
A follow-up inspection the next day, April 16, showed two high-severity violations and one intermediate still on the books. That means the day after the worst inspection in the restaurant's history, high-severity problems remained.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed. It has accumulated violations across every inspection on record, in overlapping categories, with counts that have generally trended upward over two and a half years.
Still Open
State inspectors did not order Santelli Pizza and Pasta closed after the April 15 inspection. The six high-severity violations, including the sewage disposal problem and the missing parasite-destruction documentation, were not sufficient under state standards to trigger an emergency closure order.
The restaurant continued serving customers.