ST. JOHNS, FL. A state inspector walked into Island Wing Company at 360 Bartram Market Drive on May 21, 2026, and found that food was not being cooked to the required minimum temperature — a direct risk of Salmonella survival in a restaurant whose primary product is poultry.
The inspector documented nine high-severity violations and seven intermediate violations that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The cooking temperature violation sits at the top of the list for a reason. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a restaurant selling wings as its core product that fails to reach that threshold is not a minor paperwork problem.
Alongside it, inspectors cited a failure to follow parasite destruction procedures. That violation applies when fish, pork, or other proteins that require specific freezing or cooking protocols to kill parasites are handled without those safeguards in place.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. That citation means cleaning agents or other hazardous substances were positioned or identified in a way that created a contamination risk to food or food-contact surfaces.
The inspector also found that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, that handwashing facilities were inadequate, and that the technique employees used when washing their hands was itself improper. Those three violations together describe a facility where the most basic barrier between sick workers and customers had broken down at multiple points simultaneously.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted to warn customers about the risks of raw or undercooked items.
On the intermediate side, inspectors cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, inadequate cooling and cold-holding equipment, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, improper use of wiping cloths, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The cooking temperature citation is the one that most directly endangered anyone who ate at Island Wing Company that day. Poultry must reach 165 degrees internally to kill Salmonella, Campylobacter, and other pathogens that live in raw chicken. A restaurant that cannot demonstrate it is hitting that temperature is serving food that may still carry those organisms.
The employee illness reporting failure compounds that risk immediately. Norovirus is the most common cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks in the United States, and it spreads through food handlers who work while symptomatic. When a facility also has inadequate handwashing infrastructure and employees using improper technique, there is no functional checkpoint between a sick worker and a customer's plate.
Parasite destruction failures are less visible but carry serious consequences. Without proper freezing protocols, parasites including Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork can survive into a finished dish. Customers would have no way of knowing, and the absence of a consumer advisory at Island Wing Company meant they were not warned.
Improperly stored toxic chemicals represent a different category of risk entirely. Mislabeled or misplaced cleaning agents can contaminate food through direct contact or through surfaces that were wiped down with a contaminated cloth, which connects directly to the wiping cloth citation also documented that day.
The Longer Record
Island Wing Company: Inspection History
May 21 was not an aberration. State records show Island Wing Company has accumulated 123 total violations across 14 inspections on record. Four of those inspections produced seven or more high-severity violations each.
The pattern is consistent. The August 2024 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and four intermediate ones. The April 2025 inspection produced the same count. December 2025 brought four high-severity violations. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
Between those heavy inspection dates, the restaurant has passed cleanly. The November 2024 visit showed zero high-severity violations. The follow-up inspection conducted the day after the May 21 visit, on May 22, 2026, also showed zero high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations.
That pattern, serious violations followed by a clean follow-up, has repeated itself at least four times in the facility's inspection history. The violations on May 21 were the worst single-day total the restaurant has recorded. The restaurant was open for business throughout.