LARGO, FL. Inspectors who walked into Winghouse Bar and Grill on Ulmerton Road on April 29 found toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used inside a working restaurant kitchen, one of seven high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
The April 29 inspection produced a violation list that touches nearly every layer of food safety, from the person who is supposed to be running the kitchen to the surfaces food touches to the seafood records required by state law. Seven of the eight total violations were classified high-severity. One more was intermediate.
What Inspectors Found
The toxic substance violation sits at the top of the severity scale because it creates a risk that has nothing to do with bacteria or parasites. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals in a food preparation environment can contaminate food or surfaces directly, and the exposure can be immediate.
The parasite destruction violation is a separate category of danger. State rules require that fish served raw or undercooked be frozen to specific temperatures for a set period to kill parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm. If that process was not followed at Winghouse, customers who ordered raw or lightly cooked fish had no protection between the parasite and the plate.
Inadequate shell stock records compounded the seafood risk. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are among the highest-risk foods served in restaurants because they are often eaten raw. State law requires shellfish to be accompanied by tags that identify their harvest location and date. Without those records, there is no way to trace an illness back to a contaminated harvest bed if customers get sick.
No manager was on duty or performing duties, which inspectors flagged as a high-severity violation on its own. A kitchen without active supervisory control is a kitchen where every other item on this list becomes more likely.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no person in charge and improperly cleaned food contact surfaces is not incidental. CDC data cited in the inspection record shows establishments without active managerial control produce three times as many critical violations as those with a manager actively overseeing operations. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that are not properly sanitized between uses become transfer points for bacteria from raw protein to ready-to-eat food.
Improper handwashing technique is a violation that sounds procedural but carries direct transmission risk. The inspection record notes that improper technique leaves pathogens on hands even when a handwashing attempt is made. An employee who handles raw chicken, attempts to wash their hands incorrectly, and then touches a cooked item has not broken the contamination chain.
The single-use item reuse violation, classified intermediate, adds another layer. Items like gloves, single-use cups, and foil are designed without the material properties to survive repeated cleaning. Reusing them reintroduces contamination that proper disposal would have ended.
The food in poor condition violation, which covers spoiled, contaminated, mislabeled, or adulterated food, means that something inspectors observed that day was not fit to be served. The inspection record does not specify what the item was, but the classification places it in the same high-severity tier as the chemical storage and parasite violations.
The Longer Record
Winghouse on Ulmerton Road: Recent Inspection History
The April 29 inspection was not an aberration. State records show 43 inspections on file for this location, with 422 total violations accumulated across that history. The restaurant has been emergency-closed four times, with three of those closures occurring in a 14-month window between January 2025 and the spring of 2026.
All three closures in that stretch involved pest activity. The January 28, 2025 closure was for rodent and fly activity. The February 17 closure, less than three weeks later, was for roach and fly activity. The April 2 closure, six weeks after that, was again for roach and fly activity and came alongside eight high-severity violations in a single inspection, the highest single-day count in the recent record.
The inspection two days after April 29 showed two high violations still on file, a reduction but not a clean bill. The December 2025 inspection had produced five high violations. The pattern across eight inspections in roughly 14 months is one of persistent high-severity findings with no extended stretch of clean results.
The restaurant drew seven high-severity violations on April 29, 2026, including improperly stored toxic substances, seafood without required traceability records, and no manager on duty. It remained open that day.