JACKSONVILLE, FL. Inspectors who walked into Dick's Wings and Grill on Old St. Augustine Road on September 21, 2026 found a restaurant with no documented allergen awareness, toxic chemicals improperly stored near food, and no written employee health policy to keep sick workers out of the kitchen. They cited eight high-severity violations and two intermediate violations. They left the restaurant open.
The facility has 268 total violations across 32 inspections on record. It was emergency-closed once before, in July 2026, for sewage problems and fly activity.
What Inspectors Found
The two chemical violations stand out for their immediacy. Inspectors cited both improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals and improperly identified, stored, or used toxic substances, two separate high-severity citations that together describe a kitchen where cleaning agents or other chemicals were not adequately separated or marked. Mislabeled or misplaced chemicals near food preparation areas can cause acute poisoning through direct contamination, with no warning to the customer who orders the food.
The allergen violation is equally direct. Inspectors found no demonstrated allergen awareness at the facility. Food allergies affect roughly 32 million Americans, and reactions send approximately 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. A kitchen with no documented allergen awareness cannot reliably warn a customer with a peanut, shellfish, or gluten allergy about what is in their food.
The employee illness violations compound the risk. Inspectors cited both the absence of a written employee health policy and a failure by employees to report illness symptoms. Together, those two violations describe a workplace with no formal system to keep a sick cook away from the food line. Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads easily when an infected worker handles food with no reporting requirement in place.
Food contact surfaces were also cited as not properly cleaned or sanitized, a violation that creates a direct cross-contamination pathway between raw proteins and ready-to-eat food. The inspector additionally cited the improper use of time as a public health control, meaning food was held in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, without the documentation required to confirm it was safe.
The menu also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items, leaving customers with compromised immune systems, including elderly diners and pregnant women, without the warning the state requires.
What These Violations Mean
The chemical storage violations are the kind inspectors treat as immediate hazards because the harm can happen invisibly. A cleaning agent stored near a prep surface, or a bottle without a label, can contaminate food without any visible sign. The customer who eats that food has no way to know.
The allergen violation carries a similar profile. When a facility cannot demonstrate that its staff understands allergen risks, the gap is not theoretical. It means a customer who asks whether a dish contains a specific ingredient may receive an answer from a worker who has never been trained to give one. Thirty people die from allergic reactions to restaurant food in the United States each year.
The illness reporting failures are worth reading carefully alongside each other. No written health policy means there is no rule requiring a sick employee to stay home. No symptom reporting means there is no mechanism to catch the worker who shows up sick anyway. Both violations were present at the same time, on the same inspection.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces are the mechanism through which bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli move from raw meat to a cutting board to a finished dish. The violation does not specify which surfaces were affected, but the citation at the high-severity level indicates inspectors considered the risk significant.
The Longer Record
The September 21 inspection is not an outlier. State records show Dick's Wings and Grill on Old St. Augustine Road has accumulated 268 violations across 32 inspections. That history includes an emergency closure on July 17, 2026, after inspectors found sewage problems and fly activity. The restaurant was allowed to reopen three days later, on July 20.
The inspection immediately before the closure, on July 17, produced seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The reopening inspection on July 20 still showed two high-severity violations and one intermediate violation, meaning the facility did not clear all serious citations before it resumed serving customers.
The pattern extends back further. An inspection on August 14, 2025 produced eight high-severity violations and two intermediate violations, an identical high-severity count to the September 2026 inspection. The only clean inspection in the recent record came on August 18, 2025, four days after that high-violation visit, suggesting the facility can meet standards when pressed but does not sustain them.
The January 2026 inspection found four high-severity violations. The July 2026 inspection cycle produced seven high-severity violations before the closure, then two more after reopening, then three more on a follow-up, then two more the same day the restaurant was allowed to reopen.
Eight high-severity violations were documented on September 21, 2026. The restaurant remained open.
