YULEE, FL. A state inspector walked into Mexican Grill and Catina Don Patron on Lofton Square Court on May 6 and documented that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, that food was coming from unapproved or unknown sources, and that toxic chemicals were improperly stored near food preparation areas. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection produced 10 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations. That tally placed it among the most serious single-visit findings in Nassau County this year, and the facility continued serving customers after inspectors left.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting violation sits at the top of any inspector's concern list. A food worker who does not disclose symptoms of nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea can transmit norovirus to dozens of customers before anyone realizes an outbreak has begun. That single violation, on its own, is enough to trigger an emergency closure at many facilities.
The unapproved food source citation compounds the risk. When ingredients enter a kitchen without passing through USDA or FDA-regulated supply chains, there is no paper trail if a customer gets sick. Inspectors also documented inadequate shell stock identification records, meaning shellfish, which are commonly consumed raw or lightly cooked, could not be traced to a licensed harvester.
Two separate chemical violations appeared on the same report. Toxic chemicals were cited as both improperly stored or labeled and improperly identified, stored, or used. Chemicals stored near food preparation surfaces can contaminate food directly or through mislabeled containers that employees mistake for food-safe products.
No allergen awareness was demonstrated. That finding means staff could not reliably identify which menu items contained common allergens, a gap that puts the 32 million Americans with food allergies at direct risk every time an order is placed.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting failure and the unapproved food source violation together represent two of the highest-risk categories in food service. An ill employee handling food is the most direct transmission route for norovirus and hepatitis A. An unverified food source means no one can confirm whether the meat, produce, or shellfish entering that kitchen met federal safety standards before it reached a plate.
The shellfish traceability violation adds a specific concern. Oysters, clams, and mussels carry natural concentrations of Vibrio bacteria and other pathogens. Certified shellfish tags allow health officials to trace a contaminated batch to its harvest bed within hours. Without those records, that window closes entirely.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned, combined with multi-use utensils that are not properly sanitized, create a layered cross-contamination risk. Bacterial biofilms can establish on improperly cleaned surfaces within 24 hours and become resistant to routine sanitizers. Every piece of food that touches those surfaces afterward carries the residue forward.
The sewage disposal violation, classified as intermediate, is not a minor paperwork issue. Improper wastewater disposal introduces fecal contamination risk into a facility, and any surface, utensil, or food that comes into contact with that contamination becomes a vector.
The Longer Record
Don Patron Inspection History: Selected Visits
The May 6 inspection was not an aberration. The facility has accumulated 315 violations across 42 inspections on record, and this is the third time in nine months that inspectors have documented eight or more high-severity violations in a single visit.
The pattern is consistent. A high-violation inspection is followed within days by a clean or near-clean follow-up, then months pass before the next serious citation wave arrives. The November 2025 inspection produced 9 high-severity violations. The December 5 follow-up showed zero. The February 2018 inspection produced 8 high-severity violations. The February 27 follow-up showed zero. The cycle has repeated again.
The facility was emergency-closed twice for rodent activity, once in July 2020 and again in January 2021, both times reopening within 24 hours. Neither of those closures appears to have interrupted the longer pattern of recurring high-severity violations in subsequent years.
The day after the May 6 inspection, a follow-up visit documented zero high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations. The restaurant passed.
It had remained open throughout.