ORLANDO, FL. An inspector visiting Scholars Restaurant & Bar at 50 E. Central Blvd. on June 2 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers being served to customers, a violation that means the kitchen was using ingredients that had bypassed federal safety inspections entirely.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The June 2 inspection produced 11 high-severity violations and 6 intermediate ones, a total of 17 citations in a single visit. The high-severity list ran from the kitchen to the front of house and touched nearly every layer of food safety.
Two separate handwashing violations were cited: employees not washing their hands adequately, and employees using improper technique when they did wash. Those are not the same citation. One means the step was skipped or rushed; the other means it was performed incorrectly even when attempted.
Inspectors also cited a failure to use time as a public health control properly. When a restaurant chooses to track how long food sits in the temperature danger zone rather than keeping it refrigerated, that tracking has to be precise. It was not.
The inspector noted inadequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish served raw or lightly cooked, including oysters, require tags that trace them back to a certified harvest bed. Without those records, there is no way to identify where the product came from if a customer becomes ill.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food. No consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked menu items. No allergen awareness was demonstrated by staff.
The person in charge was present but not performing duties. That last citation carries specific regulatory weight: an absent or inattentive manager is, in CDC data, correlated with three times the rate of critical violations at a given facility.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is the one that is hardest to walk back after the fact. When ingredients arrive from unapproved or unknown suppliers, they have not gone through USDA or FDA inspection checkpoints. If a customer becomes sick, there is no supply chain to trace. The same logic applies to the shellfish records violation. Oysters and clams from uncertified sources can carry Vibrio bacteria, which can be fatal in people with liver disease or weakened immune systems.
The illness reporting failure is a different category of risk. Food workers who do not report symptoms of nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea can transmit norovirus to dozens of customers before a single complaint is filed. Norovirus spreads through food contact and survives on surfaces for days.
The handwashing failures compound everything else. Improper technique, as cited here alongside inadequate handwashing, means pathogens can survive on hands even when an employee believes they have washed. Combined with the food contact surface sanitization failure and the multi-use utensil cleaning violation cited in the intermediate tier, the inspection describes a kitchen where contamination could move from worker to surface to plate without interruption.
The allergen awareness citation is the one most likely to send a customer to an emergency room with no warning. Food allergies account for roughly 30,000 emergency room visits annually in the United States. A staff that cannot identify allergens in dishes, or does not know to ask, is a staff that cannot protect a customer who has disclosed an allergy.
The Longer Record
Scholars Restaurant and Bar: Inspection History
Scholars has 18 inspections on record and 83 total violations across that history. The facility was emergency-closed twice in November 2015, both times for rodent activity, and both times reopened within a day.
The years between 2022 and early 2024 were relatively quiet. A June 2022 inspection found no high-severity violations. A January 2024 visit found none either. That stretch makes the August 2025 inspection, which produced three high-severity violations, a notable upturn, and the June 2026 inspection a significant escalation.
A follow-up inspection was conducted the day after the June 2 visit, on June 3. That visit found three high-severity violations and four intermediate ones still present.
The restaurant was not emergency-closed on June 2, when inspectors documented 11 high-severity violations. It was not closed on June 3, when three remained. As of the most recent record in this data, Scholars Restaurant & Bar was open for business.