FLAGLER BEACH, FL. State inspectors cited Coquina Coast Brewing Company on Moody Boulevard for six high-severity violations on July 22, 2026, including food not cooked to required minimum temperatures and toxic chemicals stored improperly near food areas, and the facility was permitted to remain open.
The inspection also turned up no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items on the menu, no written employee health policy, food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, and no person in charge present or performing duties during the visit. Two intermediate violations, covering improper sewage or wastewater disposal and multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, rounded out the findings.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooked food violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate there that day. Pathogens like Salmonella in poultry survive below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause illness within hours of consumption.
The toxic chemicals finding compounds that risk. Chemicals stored improperly near food preparation areas can contaminate food through mislabeling or physical proximity, with no visible sign that anything is wrong until someone becomes sick.
The absence of a person in charge during the inspection is, on its own, a signal. State health data shows establishments operating without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at roughly three times the rate of those with supervision in place.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of undercooked food and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items is a specific hazard for a defined group of customers. Elderly diners, pregnant women, young children, and anyone with a compromised immune system rely on menu disclosures to make informed decisions about what they order. Without that advisory, those customers had no warning at Coquina Coast on July 22.
The employee health policy violation is not a paperwork problem. Without a written policy requiring sick workers to stay home, a single employee with Norovirus can infect dozens of customers before anyone connects the cases. Norovirus accounts for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and food service workers are a primary transmission route.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and unclean multi-use utensils work together. Surfaces that are not sanitized between uses transfer bacteria from raw proteins to ready-to-eat food. Utensils that are not properly cleaned develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours, biofilms that resist standard cleaning and keep recontaminating whatever they touch.
The sewage and wastewater disposal violation is the one that tends to get underreported. Raw sewage carries E. coli, Hepatitis A, and other pathogens. Improper disposal creates the conditions for fecal contamination to spread through a facility without any single visible source.
The Longer Record
The July 22 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Coquina Coast Brewing has accumulated 92 violations across 20 inspections on record, and the two most recent inspections are the worst in that history.
On May 22, 2026, exactly two months before the July visit, inspectors cited the brewery for six high-severity and five intermediate violations. That inspection and the July inspection together represent 11 high-severity violations in 61 days.
Before that stretch, the record showed a more uneven pattern. The March 2025 inspection produced one high and one intermediate violation. The May 2024 visit turned up three high violations. The two 2022 inspections each generated one high violation. The facility had two clean inspections in late 2021, and one with three high violations just three days before one of those clean visits, in November 2021.
The facility has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history.
Open for Business
What changed between the clean inspections of late 2021 and the back-to-back high-severity tallies of 2026 is not in the public record. What is in the record is the trajectory: six high violations in May, six more in July, 92 total violations across two decades of inspections, and no closure order issued after either of this year's worst findings.
Coquina Coast Brewing Company was open after the July 22 inspection.
