PORT ORANGE, FL. Back in April 2026, a state inspector walked into San Diego Grill at 5535 S. Williamson Blvd. and found that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness to management, one of the most direct pathways to a multi-victim outbreak documented in Florida health records.
That was one of six high-severity violations cited on April 13. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
Beyond the illness-reporting failure, inspectors cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification and records. Shellfish served without proper tagging or documentation cannot be traced back to a source if customers become sick.
The inspector also found that parasite destruction procedures were not being followed. Proper freezing or cooking protocols exist specifically to kill parasites such as Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork. Without them, those parasites reach the plate.
Two additional high-severity violations involved food safety controls that restaurants use as an alternative to refrigeration. When time is used as a public health control, food is permitted to remain in the temperature danger zone, but only under a strict written plan with clear time limits. Inspectors found those procedures were not properly followed. There was also no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, leaving customers with no way to know they were eating food that carried elevated risk.
The sixth high-severity violation involved toxic chemicals stored or labeled improperly, creating a direct contamination risk for food and food-contact surfaces nearby.
Three intermediate violations rounded out the report: improper sewage or wastewater disposal, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and improper use of wiping cloths.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting failure is the violation public health officials rank most seriously. When a food worker continues handling food while experiencing symptoms of norovirus or similar illness, they become a direct transmission route to every customer served. Norovirus is responsible for the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks tied to restaurants nationwide, and a single sick employee working a full shift can expose dozens of diners.
The shellfish documentation failure compounds the risk in a different way. If a customer at San Diego Grill became sick after eating oysters or clams in April, investigators would have no reliable paper trail to identify the harvest location, the dealer, or whether other restaurants received product from the same contaminated batch. Traceability is the mechanism that stops an outbreak from spreading beyond one restaurant.
The parasite destruction failure is specific and serious. Restaurants that serve raw or undercooked fish are required to follow documented freezing protocols. Without those records, there is no way to confirm that fish served to customers had been treated to kill parasites. Combined with the missing consumer advisory, diners eating raw or lightly cooked items at San Diego Grill in April had no way of knowing the food had not undergone required safety treatment.
Improperly stored chemicals near food preparation areas carry a different but immediate risk. Mislabeled containers or chemicals stored adjacent to food can cause acute poisoning, and the harm can occur before anyone identifies the source.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was not an outlier. San Diego Grill has 26 inspections on record in the state database, with 246 total violations accumulated over that span.
The most recent seven inspections before April 2026 each produced high-severity violations. The October 2025 inspection found 6 high-severity violations. The May 2025 inspection found 7. The February 2025 inspection found 8, as did the December 2024 inspection. In December 2023, a single inspection produced 11 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate ones.
The only clean inspection in the recent record was March 2023, when inspectors found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. Every inspection since has produced multiple high-severity citations.
The Pattern
What the history shows is not a restaurant that had a bad month. It is a facility that has logged high-severity violations in eight of its last nine inspections, covering more than three years.
Some of the violation categories repeat. Illness reporting, food safety controls, and documentation failures appear across multiple inspection dates, suggesting these are not one-time oversights being corrected between visits.
San Diego Grill has never been emergency-closed. Despite 246 violations on record and six high-severity findings in April 2026 alone, the restaurant remained open after the inspector left that day.