DELAND, FL. A state inspection at Deland Tijuana Flats on International Speedway Boulevard on May 5, 2026 found six high-severity violations and zero intermediate ones, including an employee failing to report illness symptoms, food sourced from unapproved suppliers, and food not cooked to required minimum temperatures. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
All six violations were high-severity. Not one was administrative. Not one was a cracked floor tile.
What Inspectors Found
The illness reporting violation sits at the top of the list for a reason. State records show that an employee at the location was not reporting symptoms of illness as required, meaning a sick worker could have been handling food served to customers with no safeguard in place.
The food sourcing violation compounds that concern. Food arriving from unapproved or unknown suppliers has bypassed USDA and FDA inspection checkpoints entirely, meaning there is no verified record of where it was grown, processed, or stored before it reached the kitchen.
Inspectors also cited inadequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are among the highest-risk foods in any kitchen because they are frequently consumed raw or only lightly cooked. Without proper tagging records, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch back to its source if a customer gets sick.
Food not cooked to required minimum temperatures was the fourth high-severity citation. Salmonella in poultry, for example, survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Undercooked food does not look or smell different from properly cooked food.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled, and required procedures for specialized food processes were not being followed. The chemicals violation is particularly acute in a busy kitchen where staff may grab a container without reading a label.
What These Violations Mean
The illness reporting failure is, by public health standards, one of the most dangerous conditions a restaurant inspector can document. Norovirus spreads through food handled by infected workers, and an employee who does not know or does not follow the requirement to report symptoms is an uncontrolled transmission route into every plate leaving that kitchen.
The food from unapproved sources violation closes off the entire traceability chain. If a customer at Deland Tijuana Flats became ill after eating there in early May, investigators would have no reliable way to trace the ingredient back through the supply chain to identify a contamination point or warn other consumers.
The shellfish records violation tightens that problem further. Shellfish tags are required precisely because raw and lightly cooked shellfish carry higher baseline risk from pathogens like Vibrio and norovirus. The tags are the only mechanism that allows a public health agency to pull a specific harvest lot off the market quickly when illnesses are reported.
Taken together, these six violations describe a kitchen where a sick worker could have been preparing food that was undercooked, sourced from uninspected suppliers, and stored alongside improperly labeled chemicals, with no specialized process controls in place. The restaurant remained open after the inspection.
The Longer Record
The May 2026 inspection was the tenth on record for this location, and the six high-severity violations documented that day are the highest single-inspection high-severity count in the facility's recorded history. The previous peak was five high-severity violations, cited in December 2022.
The pattern across those ten inspections is consistent. Of the eight prior inspections with recorded violation data, six included at least two high-severity citations. The location has never been emergency-closed.
The March 2024 inspection found four high-severity violations and one intermediate. The September 2023 inspection found four high-severity and two intermediate. The November 2024 inspection found two high-severity and two intermediate. The facility had a clean inspection in September 2025, with zero violations of any kind, followed one day earlier by an inspection that found two high-severity violations. That sequence, a flagged inspection on September 29 and a clear one on September 30, suggests a rapid correction was made, but the May 2026 results indicate the underlying compliance culture did not hold.
Across all ten inspections, the facility has accumulated 51 total violations on record. The most recent inspection added six of the most serious kind the state documents.
Still Open
Florida law gives inspectors the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. An employee not reporting illness symptoms, food from uninspected sources, and undercooked food each independently meet the threshold that state guidance identifies as high-priority concerns requiring immediate correction.
After the May 5 inspection, Deland Tijuana Flats was not closed.
The state's own violation classifications labeled all six findings high-severity. The restaurant continued serving customers on International Speedway Boulevard with those six violations on the books.