DAYTONA BEACH, FL. Food that didn't reach the minimum safe cooking temperature. Toxic chemicals improperly stored and labeled. No one in charge performing their duties. State inspectors documented all of it at Dick's Last Resort at 250 N. Atlantic Avenue on August 18, 2026, and the restaurant stayed open.
The inspection produced six high-severity violations and three intermediate ones. Under Florida's inspection system, high-severity violations are those most directly tied to foodborne illness and acute health risk.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooked food violation is the one that most directly put customers at risk. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and undercooking is one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks tied to restaurants.
Two separate chemical violations were cited on the same inspection. Inspectors flagged both improper storage and labeling of toxic chemicals, and separately cited improper identification, storage, and use of toxic substances. Those are distinct categories, and both were marked high-severity.
Employees were observed using improper handwashing technique. That citation does not mean no one washed their hands. It means the technique was wrong, and pathogens can remain on hands even after an attempted wash.
The three intermediate violations added to the picture. Multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned, single-use items were being reused, and ventilation and lighting were cited as inadequate.
What These Violations Mean
The food temperature violation is the most immediate concern for anyone who ate at Dick's Last Resort on or before August 18. Cooking food to minimum safe temperatures is the last reliable kill step for pathogens like Salmonella. When that step is skipped or incomplete, the risk transfers directly to the customer.
The two chemical violations, taken together, describe a kitchen where toxic substances were not properly controlled. Mislabeled or improperly stored chemicals near food preparation areas can cause acute poisoning through accidental contamination. The fact that inspectors cited both storage and identification as separate failures suggests the problem was not isolated to one product or one shelf.
The absence of an employee health policy means there is no written system requiring sick workers to stay out of the kitchen. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads readily through food handled by infected workers. A policy does not guarantee compliance, but the absence of one removes the baseline.
The person-in-charge violation ties the others together. CDC data shows that establishments without active managerial control have three times the rate of critical violations. When no one is actively supervising, violations in every other category become more likely, not less.
The Longer Record
August 18 was not an unusual day for this restaurant. It was the thirtieth inspection on record for Dick's Last Resort at this address, and the cumulative total across all those visits is 244 violations.
The inspection history shows a pattern of serious findings followed by cleaner visits, followed by serious findings again. Inspectors recorded seven high-severity violations in January 2025, then zero high-severity violations in April 2025, then five high-severity violations in September 2025, then six in August 2026. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The same categories recur. High-severity counts of three or more appear in six of the eight most recent inspections on record. The two clean visits, in April 2025 and May 2024, stand out against that backdrop, but neither appears to have produced lasting improvement.
Open for Business
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when inspectors determine that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations at Dick's Last Resort on August 18 did not meet that threshold.
The restaurant was not closed.
Customers who visited Dick's Last Resort on or after August 18 did so while the facility remained under the same conditions inspectors had just documented, including food not cooked to required temperatures and toxic chemicals that were improperly stored and labeled.
The inspection record is public. The restaurant is still open.
