CALLAHAN, FL. A Hardee's restaurant on US 1 was serving food from an unapproved or unknown source when state inspectors arrived on April 20, a violation that means the food had bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely, with no way to trace it if someone got sick.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented at Hardee's at 542309 US 1 during the April inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical violations stood out alongside the sourcing problem. Inspectors cited the restaurant twice for issues involving toxic substances, once for improper storage or labeling and once for improper identification, storage, or use. Both violations involve chemicals near food, and both carry a risk of acute poisoning through contamination or mislabeling.
The employee health violations compounded the picture. Inspectors found no written employee health policy and documented that an employee was not reporting illness symptoms, two separate citations that together describe a workplace where a sick food handler had no formal obligation to stay home and no system requiring them to disclose symptoms before handling food.
Inspectors also cited the location for food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, for inadequate shell stock identification records, and for posting no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. The two intermediate violations covered inadequate ventilation and lighting, and improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is among the most consequential a restaurant can receive. Food from unapproved or unknown sources has not been inspected by the USDA or FDA, meaning it could harbor Listeria, Salmonella, or other pathogens with no documentation trail. If a customer became ill, investigators would have nowhere to start tracing the source.
The dual chemical violations are a direct poisoning risk. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food or food-preparation surfaces can contaminate meals without any visible sign. Mislabeled containers create a second hazard: a worker reaching for a sanitizer could use a corrosive cleaner instead, and the error might not be caught until food has already been prepared with it.
The employee illness violations are the category most directly linked to multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States, spreads person-to-person and through food handled by infected workers. A written health policy and a reporting requirement are the two most basic tools a restaurant has to interrupt that transmission. This Hardee's lacked both.
Unsanitized food contact surfaces, the third high-severity violation in this cluster, are the mechanism by which bacteria actually moves from one food to another or from a surface to a customer's meal. Cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that are not properly cleaned between uses become transfer points.
The Longer Record
The April inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 27 inspections on file for this location, with 173 total violations accumulated across that history.
The most recent inspections tell a consistent story. In September 2024, inspectors cited the restaurant for six high-severity and six intermediate violations. In October 2025, four high-severity and one intermediate. The April 2026 visit, with eight high-severity citations, is the worst single inspection in the recent run.
The location was emergency-closed once before, in September 2022, after inspectors documented rodent activity. It reopened the following day. The December 2024 inspection produced no high-severity or intermediate violations, the one clean result in a stretch otherwise defined by repeated serious citations.
The pattern across the prior inspections shows recurring high-severity findings in nearly every calendar year on record. There was no single category that drove every visit, but the volume and consistency of high-severity citations across multiple inspection cycles is what the record shows.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented eight high-severity violations at this Hardee's on April 20, 2026, including food from an unapproved source, two separate chemical storage and labeling failures, no employee illness policy, and an employee not reporting symptoms of illness.
The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
It accumulated 173 total violations across 27 inspections, was shut down once for rodent activity in 2022, and logged its highest single-visit high-severity count on record in April. Customers who visited that day had no way of knowing any of that.