MERRITT ISLAND, FL. Inspectors visiting Margarita Island Mexican Kitchen and Bar at 777 E. Merritt Island Causeway on July 20 found that the restaurant was serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means inspectors could not verify whether that food had passed any federal safety inspection.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. It means the restaurant could not demonstrate that its ingredients came through a supplier subject to USDA or FDA oversight. If a customer became sick, there would be no chain of custody to trace.
Alongside the sourcing problem, inspectors found that the restaurant had no written employee health policy and that employees were not reporting illness symptoms. Those two violations together describe a kitchen where a worker with Norovirus, Salmonella, or Hepatitis A could handle food without any formal requirement to disclose it.
The restaurant also lacked adequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish, including oysters and clams, are consumed raw or lightly cooked and carry a heightened risk of Vibrio and other pathogens. Without proper tagging records, there is no way to trace a batch back to its harvest site if someone falls ill.
Toxic substances were found to be improperly identified, stored, or used. Chemical contamination from cleaning agents or pesticides does not require prolonged exposure to cause harm.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch what customers eat, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. The restaurant also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, meaning diners with compromised immune systems had no notice of the risk.
No person in charge was present or performing managerial duties at the time of the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no health policy and no illness reporting is not a paperwork problem. It is a structural gap that lets a sick employee work through an entire shift without any formal obligation to step aside. The CDC links food worker illness to the majority of restaurant-based Norovirus outbreaks, which collectively account for roughly 20 million cases in the United States each year. At Margarita Island, both the policy requiring disclosure and the practice of actually disclosing symptoms were absent on the same day.
The shell stock traceability violation compounds the risk. When shellfish are harvested from waters that later test positive for contamination, health officials rely on harvest tags to issue targeted recalls. Without those records at the restaurant level, a contaminated batch cannot be pulled from service in time.
Improperly stored toxic substances in a food service environment can result in chemical contamination that mimics food poisoning and is difficult to diagnose quickly. Inspectors flagged this at Margarita Island on July 20. The restaurant served customers that day.
The absence of a person in charge is not incidental. Research cited by the CDC shows that restaurants without active managerial control during service accumulate critical violations at roughly three times the rate of those with engaged supervision. Every other violation on this list is easier to prevent when someone in authority is watching.
The Longer Record
The July 20 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 37 inspections on file for Margarita Island Mexican Kitchen, with 341 total violations documented across that history.
The pattern in recent years is consistent. On November 12, 2024, inspectors found 9 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate ones. A follow-up two days later still produced 2 high-severity violations. The restaurant passed a follow-up on November 15. Then, on May 1, 2025, it was back to 6 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate ones. August 14, 2025 brought 7 high-severity violations. January 8, 2026 produced 8 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate ones, followed by a clean pass on January 9.
The cycle is now repeating. A serious inspection is followed by a follow-up that meets standards, and then, weeks or months later, the serious violations return.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history, despite accumulating violations across multiple years that include food sourcing problems, illness policy failures, and unsanitized food contact surfaces in overlapping inspection cycles.
Still Open
State inspectors documented 8 high-severity violations at Margarita Island Mexican Kitchen on July 20, 2026. The violations included food from an unverifiable source, no mechanism for employees to report illness, improperly handled toxic substances, and shellfish with no traceable origin.
The restaurant remained open.
