JACKSONVILLE, FL. State inspectors visiting Morton's The Steakhouse at 225 E Coastline Drive on May 12 found that the upscale restaurant was serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means some of what customers ate that night bypassed federal safety inspections entirely.
The inspection produced 10 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. Food that enters a kitchen from an unapproved supplier has not been inspected by the USDA or FDA, which means there is no safety check for Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli, and no traceability if a customer later gets sick.
The shellfish records violation compounds that risk. Morton's menu includes raw and lightly cooked shellfish. Without proper shell stock identification tags, inspectors cannot trace oysters, clams, or mussels back to their harvest beds if an illness outbreak occurs.
Inspectors also cited three distinct handwashing failures: employees not washing hands adequately, handwashing facilities that were themselves inadequate, and improper hand and arm washing technique. These are recorded as three separate high-severity violations, not one.
The restaurant also had no written employee health policy and a separate citation for employees failing to report illness symptoms. Together, those two violations describe a kitchen where a worker sick with Norovirus had no formal obligation to stay home and no documented system requiring it.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. A separate intermediate violation documented improper sewage or wastewater disposal on the premises.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no health policy and no illness-reporting requirement is what public health officials describe as an outbreak waiting to happen. Norovirus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea and spreads through contaminated food, is responsible for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year. The single most common source is a food worker who prepared food while sick. A written health policy is the mechanism that prevents that. Morton's Jacksonville did not have one on May 12.
The three handwashing violations at this inspection describe a layered failure. Inadequate facilities means the infrastructure for proper hygiene was not in place. Inadequate handwashing by employees means the behavior was wrong. Improper technique means that even when employees attempted to wash their hands, they were not doing it correctly. Each of those citations is high-severity on its own. All three appearing at the same facility in the same inspection describes a kitchen where contamination could transfer from hands to food at nearly any point in meal preparation.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned and sanitized create a separate cross-contamination pathway. Cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that carry bacteria from one food item to another are a primary vehicle for spreading pathogens, including from raw proteins to foods that will not be cooked again before reaching the table.
The improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals citation carries a direct poisoning risk. Chemicals stored near food, or placed in unlabeled containers, can contaminate ingredients or be mistaken for food-safe products by kitchen staff.
The Longer Record
The May 2026 inspection is not an outlier. It is the sixth time in roughly two and a half years that Morton's Jacksonville has logged 9 or more high-severity violations in a single inspection.
The facility has 22 inspections on record and 239 total violations. In April 2024, inspectors cited 12 high-severity violations. In May 2024 the count was 10 high and 6 intermediate. In November 2024 a routine visit found only 2 high violations, but a follow-up five days later produced 10 high and 5 intermediate. December 2025 brought 9 high violations. May 2026 brought 10.
The pattern across those inspections shows the same categories appearing repeatedly: handwashing failures, food sourcing concerns, and surface sanitation. These are not one-time lapses caught on a bad day. They are violations that have been documented, presumably corrected for a follow-up inspection, and then documented again months later.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. In all 22 inspections on record, the state has not ordered Morton's Jacksonville to shut its doors, including after the 12-violation inspection in April 2024 or the 14-violation inspection in May 2023.
Still Open
After the May 12 inspection, with 10 high-severity violations on record including food from an unapproved source, no illness-reporting policy, three separate handwashing failures, improperly stored chemicals, and inadequate sewage disposal, Morton's The Steakhouse on East Coastline Drive remained open for business.