TAMPA, FL. A restaurant on South MacDill Avenue was cited for obtaining food from unapproved or unknown sources, one of six high-severity violations recorded at BT at 2507 S MacDill Ave during the week of June 8, 2026, the single most dangerous finding in a week that produced high-severity citations at ten Tampa establishments.
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. It means inspectors could not verify the food passed federal safety screening, and if someone gets sick, there is no supply chain to trace back.
BT's violations did not stop there. Inspectors also documented improper handwashing technique, inadequate shellfish traceability records, food not cooked to required minimum temperature, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items. Six high-severity violations, zero intermediate ones.
What Inspectors Found
Molly Malone's Irish Pub at 304 E Davis Blvd drew four high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. The person in charge was either absent or not performing required duties, inspectors wrote, and the facility had inadequate handwashing infrastructure alongside improper technique. Multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned and toilet facilities were inadequately maintained.
Pho 813 LLC at 3701 Henderson Blvd was cited for toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food, a violation that carries acute poisoning risk, alongside food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, no employee health policy, and no consumer advisory for raw items.
Tasty Mediterranean Grill at 6178 Gunn Hwy was flagged for inadequate shellfish traceability records, no employee health policy, and improper handwashing technique. A Mediterranean restaurant serving shellfish without documentation of where those shellfish came from means there is no tag to pull if a customer reports illness.
Good Luck Chuck's at 410 S Howard Ave drew the same shellfish traceability violation alongside improper handwashing technique and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Multi-use utensils were also flagged as not properly cleaned.
Rome and Fig at 317 N Rome Ave had three high-severity violations: no employee health policy, no consumer advisory, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. No intermediate violations were recorded, but the chemical storage finding alone is a direct contamination risk.
Spartaco's Kitchen at 241 E Davis Blvd produced one of the week's most concerning combinations. The person in charge was not present or not performing duties, and an employee was documented as not reporting symptoms of illness. Those two violations together, management absent and a potentially sick worker on the floor, are the conditions that precede outbreaks.
Brother Trattoria at 2402 S MacDill Ave was cited for no employee health policy and improper handwashing technique. Two violations, but both are in the categories that state inspectors classify as high-severity for direct disease transmission risk.
Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits No. 95 at 2216 E Fletcher Ave was cited for the same pairing as Spartaco's: person in charge not present or not performing duties, and an employee not reporting symptoms of illness. At a high-volume fast food location, the volume of customers exposed multiplies the risk of either violation.
Ybor City Tap House at 1600 E 8th Ave was flagged for food not cooked to required minimum temperature and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Serving undercooked food without telling customers it may be undercooked removes the last layer of informed consent.
What These Violations Mean
The food from unapproved sources citation at BT is among the most serious a food establishment can receive. When food bypasses USDA and FDA inspection channels, there is no documentation to trace if a customer develops Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli symptoms days after eating there. The supply chain record is what allows public health officials to identify the source of an outbreak and pull product. Without it, investigators are working blind.
Shellfish traceability failures, cited at BT, Tasty Mediterranean Grill, and Good Luck Chuck's, carry a specific additional risk. Oysters, clams, and mussels are frequently eaten raw or lightly cooked, and they filter-feed pathogens directly from the water they grow in. Florida requires shellstock identification tags to remain on file for 90 days precisely so that a norovirus or Vibrio cluster can be traced back to a specific harvest area. No tag means no trace.
The employee illness reporting failures at Spartaco's Kitchen and Popeyes No. 95 on Fletcher are the violation type most directly linked to multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, which causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, is shed in enormous quantities by infected food workers before they feel severely ill. A worker who does not report symptoms, or whose employer has no written policy requiring them to, can infect dozens of customers in a single shift.
Improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals, cited at both Pho 813 and Rome and Fig, represent a different category of risk entirely. Chemical contamination of food does not require bacterial growth or time. A cleaning solution stored above a prep surface, or a bottle mislabeled as a food ingredient, can cause acute poisoning in a single meal.
The Longer Record
Molly Malone's Irish Pub carries the longest inspection history of any facility in this week's group, with 36 prior inspections on record. That volume of oversight and this week's findings, including absent management, inadequate handwashing infrastructure, and improperly cleaned utensils, suggests the violations are not the result of a single bad day.
Pho 813 has 29 prior inspections on record. Ybor City Tap House has 28. Good Luck Chuck's has 26. Spartaco's Kitchen and Popeyes No. 95 on Fletcher each have 24. These are not new establishments encountering their first round of regulatory scrutiny.
BT and Brother Trattoria each show 21 prior inspections, and they share a street. Both South MacDill Avenue locations were cited this week for the same two violations: no employee health policy and improper handwashing technique. Whether that reflects a neighborhood pattern or coincidence, the record does not say.
Tasty Mediterranean Grill, with 14 prior inspections, and Rome and Fig, with 12, are the youngest histories in this group. Rome and Fig's chemical storage violation on what is a relatively short inspection record is a harder finding to explain away as accumulated code drift. The facility has not been around long enough to have that excuse.
The one unresolved fact this week: BT's citation for food from unapproved or unknown sources does not specify what food, or where it came from, and the state record does not indicate whether that sourcing question had been answered by the time this article was published.