TIERRA VERDE, FL. A state inspector visiting Sea Worthy Fish Bar at 1110 Pinellas Bayway S on June 9 found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, no shellfish identification records, and employees not reporting illness symptoms, among nine separate high-severity violations. The restaurant was not closed.

The facility serves seafood, including shellfish. Inspectors cited it for inadequate shell stock identification records, meaning there was no documentation showing where the oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu came from or when they were harvested.

What Inspectors Found

1HIGHFood not cooked to required minimum temperaturePathogen survival risk
2HIGHInadequate shell stock identification/recordsNo traceability
3HIGHEmployee not reporting symptoms of illnessOutbreak enabler
4HIGHNo employee health policyDisease transmission
5HIGHImproper hand and arm washing techniqueTechnique failure
6HIGHInadequate handwashing facilitiesHygiene infrastructure failure
7HIGHFood contact surfaces not properly cleaned/sanitizedCross-contamination risk
8HIGHNo consumer advisory for raw/undercooked foodsUninformed diners
9HIGHPerson in charge not present or performing dutiesManagement failure

The nine high-severity citations covered nearly every critical control point in a working kitchen. Inspectors documented that the person in charge was not present or not performing duties, that employees had no written health policy requiring them to report illness, and that employees were, in fact, not reporting illness symptoms.

Handwashing failures compounded the picture. Inspectors found both inadequate handwashing facilities and improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning the physical infrastructure was deficient and the technique being used was wrong regardless.

Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. And the restaurant had posted no consumer advisory informing diners that some items were served raw or undercooked, a notice required specifically to warn pregnant women, elderly customers, and anyone with a compromised immune system.

What These Violations Mean

The undercooking citation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at Sea Worthy Fish Bar around the time of this inspection. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Pathogens in fish and shellfish require their own minimum internal temperatures to be neutralized. When a kitchen is not hitting those marks, the food arriving at the table carries live bacteria.

The shellfish traceability failure compounds that risk in a specific way. Oysters, clams, and mussels are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked, and shellfish are among the most common vehicles for Vibrio and norovirus. When proper shell stock identification records are missing, there is no way to trace an illness back to a harvest location or a specific lot, which means an outbreak can spread before the source is identified.

The illness reporting failures are a separate transmission pathway entirely. Norovirus is responsible for roughly 20 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States each year, and food workers who continue handling food while symptomatic are among the most common causes of multi-victim outbreaks. Without a written health policy and without employees reporting symptoms, a sick worker has no formal obligation to stay out of the kitchen.

The absence of a person in charge performing active oversight ties all of these failures together. CDC data indicates that establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with engaged supervision. At Sea Worthy Fish Bar on June 9, the inspection record shows what that looks like in practice.

The Longer Record

Sea Worthy Fish Bar: Recent Inspection History

2026-06-09 9 high, 2 intermediate violations. Facility remained open.
2025-10-29 5 high, 1 intermediate violations.
2025-04-30 8 high, 2 intermediate violations.
2024-07-31 6 high, 2 intermediate violations.
2024-07-30 10 high, 5 intermediate violations. Back-to-back inspections.
2024-05-09 9 high, 3 intermediate violations.

The June 9 inspection was the 25th on record for Sea Worthy Fish Bar, and the facility has accumulated 250 total violations across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.

The pattern of high-severity violations is not new. The April 2025 inspection produced 8 high-severity violations. The May 2024 inspection produced 9, matching the June 2026 count exactly. In July 2024, inspectors returned on back-to-back days, finding 10 high-severity violations on July 30 and 6 more on July 31.

Six of the last seven inspections on record each produced at least 5 high-severity violations. The single exception was an April 2024 visit that found 2. The inspection before that, in January 2024, found 4.

The facility has never been cited with zero high-severity violations in any inspection since early 2023, when one visit produced only an intermediate citation. Every inspection since has included multiple high-severity findings.

After nine high-severity violations on June 9, 2026, Sea Worthy Fish Bar remained open for business.