DAYTONA BEACH, FL. State inspectors visited Big Tunas Beach Bar & Grill at 2695 N. Atlantic Ave. on August 3 and documented food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, meaning some of what was served to customers that day had bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely. The restaurant was not closed.
The August inspection produced 9 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations. Among the high-severity findings: parasite destruction procedures had not been followed, food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and food had been contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazards.
What Inspectors Found
The handwashing picture alone was striking. Inspectors cited the restaurant for four distinct handwashing failures: employees were not washing their hands adequately, the handwashing facilities themselves were inadequate, employees were using improper technique when they did attempt to wash, and no person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties.
That last violation, the absence of active managerial control, is the one that tends to explain the rest. When no manager is monitoring food handling, hand hygiene, and sourcing, violations compound.
The food contamination citation covered chemical, physical, and biological hazards, a broad finding that encompasses everything from sanitizer residue on a prep surface to glass fragments in food. The inspection record does not specify which type of contamination was observed, but the violation carries the same high-severity classification regardless.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is one of the most consequential a restaurant can receive. When food bypasses USDA or FDA inspection, there is no chain of custody if a customer gets sick. Inspectors cannot trace a Listeria or Salmonella outbreak back to a supplier if the supplier was never documented. For a beach bar that almost certainly serves fish, that traceability gap is not abstract.
The parasite destruction failure compounds that risk directly. Certain fish served raw or undercooked, including species common on beach bar menus, must be frozen to specific temperatures for specific durations to kill parasites like Anisakis. If the fish came from an unapproved source and parasite destruction procedures were also not followed, those two violations function together as a single pathway to illness.
The employee illness reporting failure is a separate and acute risk. Food workers who do not report symptoms of nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea are the leading cause of multi-victim norovirus outbreaks. A single symptomatic employee handling food without reporting can expose dozens of customers in a single shift.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, combined with multi-use utensils that were not properly cleaned, create the conditions for bacterial transfer from one food item to the next. Bacterial biofilms can establish on unclean surfaces within 24 hours, and standard rinsing does not remove them.
The Longer Record
Big Tunas: Inspection History, 2023–2026
The August 3 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Big Tunas has accumulated 212 violations across 24 inspections on record, and every inspection in the past three and a half years has produced at least 4 high-severity violations.
The worst single visit on record was July 31, 2024, when inspectors cited 10 high-severity violations. The most recent inspection before August 3 came in March 2026, with 5 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
That pattern, high-severity violations appearing at every inspection with no apparent reduction over time, is what distinguishes a facility with an occasional bad day from one with a structural compliance problem. Big Tunas has been inspected in every season, across multiple years, and the number of high-severity violations has never reached zero.
Still Open
The state did not order Big Tunas closed after the August 3 inspection. The restaurant sits on North Atlantic Avenue, one of the main tourist corridors in Daytona Beach, and serves customers during one of the busiest stretches of the summer season.
The 9 high-severity violations documented that day included unapproved food sources, parasite destruction failures, food contamination, and a management absence that inspectors flagged as a contributing condition. None of it resulted in a closure order.
Big Tunas has now been cited for high-severity violations in each of the last eight inspections on record.
