SEBASTIAN, FL. Inspectors who walked into Mulligans Beach House Bar and Grill at 806 Indian River Dr. on July 21 found that the restaurant had no adequate employee health policy, meaning a cook or server who showed up sick that morning had no written protocol requiring them to stay home or stay off the line.
That violation sits alongside five others rated high-severity in the same inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The July 21 inspection documented two separate handwashing failures. The first was structural: handwashing facilities were found to be inadequate, meaning the physical infrastructure for proper hygiene was not in place. The second was behavioral: employees were observed using improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning that even when handwashing was attempted, it was done incorrectly.
Those two violations compound each other. Broken-down facilities and flawed technique together leave the same pathogens on hands that adequate washing is designed to remove.
Food contact surfaces were cited as not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and similar equipment that touches food directly are the primary transfer route for bacteria from one food item to the next.
Inspectors also cited a violation for time not being properly used as a public health control. When a restaurant opts to use time rather than temperature to manage food safety, the food is permitted to sit in the temperature danger zone for a defined window before it must be discarded. At Mulligans, that system was not being followed correctly.
The sixth high-severity violation: no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised need that warning to make an informed choice about dishes like rare burgers or raw shellfish. There was none posted.
On the intermediate side, inspectors found improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils that had not been properly cleaned, inadequate cooling and cold-holding equipment, single-use items being reused, and inadequate ventilation and lighting. That is eleven violations in a single visit across two severity tiers.
What These Violations Mean
The absence of an employee health policy is not a paperwork problem. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States each year, spreads when infected food workers handle food without restriction. A written health policy is the mechanism that keeps a sick employee off the line. Without one, there is no documented standard requiring that conversation to happen.
The handwashing failures at Mulligans on July 21 are particularly significant because they appeared at both the facility level and the technique level. Studies consistently show that even when handwashing is attempted, improper technique, specifically failing to scrub long enough or thoroughly enough, leaves live pathogens on hands. At Mulligans, the facilities were inadequate and the technique was wrong.
The sewage and wastewater disposal violation carries a specific risk that goes beyond odor or aesthetics. Raw sewage contains E. coli, Hepatitis A, and a range of other pathogens. Improper disposal creates the possibility of fecal contamination spreading to surfaces, equipment, or food in the facility.
The inadequate cold-holding equipment citation matters because it is not a behavior that can be corrected by retraining staff. If the equipment cannot maintain required temperatures, food will enter the bacterial growth zone regardless of what employees do. That is a structural problem.
The Longer Record
The July 21 inspection was not an outlier. State records show 38 inspections on file for Mulligans Beach House, with 495 total violations documented across that history.
Six of the eight most recent inspections on record each produced six or more high-severity violations. The July 2025 inspection produced eight high-severity and four intermediate violations. The March 2025 inspection produced eight high-severity and three intermediate violations. The pattern does not show a facility that received a bad inspection and corrected course.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. In 38 inspections and 495 documented violations, the state has not once ordered the doors shut.
The inspection conducted eight days after the July 21 visit, on July 29, produced the same count: six high-severity and five intermediate violations.
Still Open
Mulligans Beach House Bar and Grill sits on the Indian River waterfront in Sebastian, the kind of location that draws locals and tourists on summer evenings. On July 21, it had no adequate employee health policy, inadequate handwashing infrastructure, employees washing their hands incorrectly, unsanitized food contact surfaces, and a cold-holding system that inspectors found to be inadequate.
It remained open that day. It remained open after the follow-up inspection eight days later, which produced an identical violation tally.
State records show 495 violations across 38 inspections. The restaurant has never been closed.
