Pizza Place Cited For 45 Violations By State Inspectors

PINELLAS COUNTY, FL — Live insects and improperly stored foods are two of the violations that Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspectors found recently in Pinellas County restaurants.

Note: Most of the restaurants that received warnings for code violations have corrected those violations and passed subsequent inspections.

• On Aug. 2, state inspectors cited Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers, 2630 Gulf To Bay Blvd., Clearwater, for 45 code violations, including six high-priority violations, such as live insects found on the premises. These included four insects found on a shelf above a pizza make table, one in a back room and two in the waitstaff area. Other high-priority violations included a rack for pizza slices that lacked a "sense guard;" an oven degreaser stored on top of food on a pizza make table; and foods held at unsafe temperatures, including cheese, meatballs, ham and sausage (this was corrected before the end of the inspection).
• Inspectors issued a warning on Aug. 2 to Lanna Thai And Sushi, 4871 Park St. N, St. Petersburg, for nine violations, including two high-priority violations. In the first of these, the inspectors halted the sale of eggs in the restaurant after they spotted a raw egg with a cracked shell stored in a walk-in cooler. In the other high-priority violation, a container of chlorine sanitizer solution, used to wipe down a sushi bar, had to be diluted with water.
• Rain Japanese And Sushi Bar, 5267 Park St. N, St. Petersburg, was cited for seven violations on Aug. 2, and two were high-priority violations. They included raw foods not properly separated from one another — in this case, raw pork stored above raw scallops (the items were moved to the correct locations). And sprouts were stored at an unsafe temperature on a rack at the cook line; they were moved into a cooler.

In the last 30 days, 139 Pinellas County restaurants did not pass their first inspections while 98 aced the first visit.

The inspectors made note of four Pinellas County restaurants that recently passed inspections without any violations: Crab House, 811 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. S, St. Petersburg; Dogs On Wheels, 2619 23rd Ave. N, St. Petersburg; Phila Deli, 1120 Pinellas Bayway S, Suite 106, Tierra Verde; and Poppo's Taqueria, 1033 Central Ave., St. Petersburg.

For more details on Pinellas County restaurant inspections, click here.