DAYTONA BEACH, FL. Inspectors visiting Dill Restaurant on North Atlantic Avenue on May 22 found food contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazards, a failure to follow parasite destruction procedures for fish, and no person in charge present or performing duties, all in a single visit that produced 11 high-severity violations and one intermediate citation.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food contamination citation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at Dill on or around May 22. State records categorize this violation as an adulteration hazard, covering contamination by sanitizers, cleaners, pesticides, glass, metal fragments, or biological agents. No additional detail about the specific contaminant is included in the inspection record.
The parasite destruction failure compounds that risk. Dill's menu leans on seafood, and when a restaurant fails to follow required freezing or cooking protocols for fish, parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm can survive into the finished dish. Customers who ordered fish that day had no way of knowing the required safeguards had not been followed.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification and missing records. Dill serves shellfish, which are consumed raw or lightly cooked and require tag documentation so that a specific harvest lot can be traced if customers become ill. Without those records, there is no way to identify the source if an outbreak occurs.
A Cascade of Management Failures
The handwashing violations, two of them, documented both that employees were not washing their hands adequately and that the technique used when washing occurred was itself incorrect. These are separate citations because they represent separate failure points: one is frequency, the other is execution. Together they describe a kitchen where hand hygiene was not functioning on either level.
The employee illness reporting violation adds a third layer. Food workers who do not report symptoms of nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea remain on the line and can transmit norovirus and other pathogens directly to food. State health officials and the CDC identify this failure as the leading cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks.
Underlying all of it was the absence of an active person in charge. Establishments without functioning managerial control, according to CDC data cited in the inspection record, accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with engaged management present. On May 22, that position was either vacant or not being performed.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of contaminated food and absent parasite destruction protocols is not a paperwork problem. A customer who ordered a fish dish at Dill on May 22 may have consumed a product that was never subjected to the freezing temperatures required to kill Anisakis larvae, which burrow into the stomach wall and intestinal lining and require endoscopic removal in serious cases. The restaurant's failure to maintain shell stock tags means that if any of those customers became ill from oysters or clams, investigators would have no harvest records to work from.
The toxic chemical citations, two separate violations covering improper storage and improper labeling, mean that sanitizers or cleaning agents were either stored near food or not clearly identified. Either condition creates a contamination pathway that can cause acute chemical poisoning, not a gradual foodborne illness but an immediate reaction that can send a diner to the emergency room.
The food contact surface citation ties the handwashing failures together. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that are not properly cleaned and sanitized carry bacteria from one food item to the next. When employees are also not washing their hands correctly, those surfaces and those hands become a continuous transfer mechanism throughout a service shift.
The Longer Record
Dill Restaurant: Inspection History
May 22 was not a bad day in an otherwise clean record. Dill has accumulated 216 total violations across 22 inspections on file. Of the eight prior inspections listed in the record, six produced five or more high-severity violations. The restaurant's best recent showing was a single-intermediate-violation inspection in August 2025, a clean result that was followed seven months later by seven high-severity citations in March 2025, and then by eleven in May 2026.
The September 2023 record is notable on its own. Inspectors visited twice on the same date and documented a combined 13 high-severity and 13 intermediate violations in a single day. No emergency closure followed that visit either.
Dill has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record. After accumulating 11 high-severity violations on May 22, including contaminated food, parasite destruction failures, and missing shellfish traceability records, it remained open for business.