EDGEWATER, FL. When a state inspector walked into Dustin's Bar-B-Q on South Ridgewood Avenue on August 25, they found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food, an employee who had not reported symptoms of illness, and no person in charge present or performing duties. The restaurant collected six high-severity violations and three intermediate ones. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical storage violation sits at the top of the list for a reason. Improperly stored or unlabeled cleaning agents and sanitizers placed near food preparation areas create a direct contamination route. A mislabeled bottle in a busy kitchen is one mistaken reach away from ending up in someone's food.
The illness reporting failure compounds that risk. Food workers who do not disclose symptoms are the primary driver of multi-victim outbreaks, particularly for norovirus, which spreads rapidly through a dining room once it enters a kitchen.
The absence of an active person in charge ties both violations together. When no manager is present and performing oversight duties, the conditions for those failures to go unnoticed and uncorrected are already in place.
The inspector also cited food in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated, and inadequate handwashing facilities. The handwashing citation matters because without functioning handwashing infrastructure, the illness reporting violation has nowhere to go even if an employee wanted to comply.
The three intermediate violations, including single-use items being reused, wiping cloths used improperly, and inadequate ventilation, round out a picture of a kitchen operating without basic procedural discipline on multiple fronts at once.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of an unreported sick employee and inadequate handwashing facilities is among the most direct pathways to a customer illness outbreak that inspectors can document. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness in restaurant settings, requires only a small number of viral particles to infect a person. An employee with symptoms who cannot or does not wash hands properly can contaminate surfaces, utensils, and food within minutes.
The toxic chemical violation carries a different but equally acute risk. Cleaning compounds stored near food or left in unlabeled containers can be mistaken for food-safe products. Acute chemical poisoning from contaminated food does not always present as a classic foodborne illness, which means cases can go unreported and unconnected to a source.
Food cited as being in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated means the inspector identified product that should not have been served. Without proper labeling, there is no way for staff or customers to know what they are eating or whether it has been stored and handled correctly.
The no-consumer-advisory violation is specific to raw or undercooked items on the menu. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, immunocompromised, or very young face significantly higher risk from undercooked proteins. Without a posted advisory, they have no way to make an informed choice.
The Longer Record
The August 25 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Dustin's Bar-B-Q has been inspected 32 times, accumulating 321 total violations across that history.
The pattern in recent years is consistent. The March 2026 inspection found two high-severity violations. The inspection one week earlier, on March 23, found six high-severity violations and four intermediate ones, a count nearly identical to the August visit. The October 2025 inspection found seven high-severity violations. February 2025 found eight.
Going further back, the August 2024 inspection found ten high-severity violations and four intermediate ones. January 2024 also found eight high-severity violations. In September 2023, inspectors visited on consecutive days, finding ten high-severity violations on September 20 and three more on September 21.
The facility has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record. Every one of those visits, including the ones with eight, nine, and ten high-severity violations, ended with the restaurant remaining open.
Still Open
Six high-severity violations in a single inspection, at a restaurant with 321 violations across 32 inspections on record, and the doors stayed open on August 25.
State rules allow inspectors to close a facility on an emergency basis when conditions pose an immediate threat to public safety. The record shows that threshold has not been reached at this location, across years of inspections and hundreds of documented violations.
Customers who ate at Dustin's Bar-B-Q after August 25 did so with an employee illness reporting failure, a chemical storage violation, and no active manager on duty documented in the most recent state inspection.
