CUTLER BAY, FL. Food at Sandbar Sports Grill on Old Cutler Road was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures on June 1, according to state inspection records, a violation that inspectors classify as a direct pathway for pathogens like Salmonella to survive and reach customers' plates.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant remained open.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector's list extended well beyond the undercooking citation. Toxic substances were improperly identified, stored, or used, a violation that creates immediate risk of chemical contamination of food or surfaces. Employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, a condition inspectors link directly to multi-victim outbreaks.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards and prep areas that touch every meal that goes out, were not being properly cleaned or sanitized. Handwashing facilities were inadequate, meaning the infrastructure for basic hygiene was compromised regardless of employee intentions.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, leaving customers with no notice that certain items carried elevated risk. And the person in charge was either not present or not performing their duties.
On the intermediate side, inspectors cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities. That is twelve violations in a single visit, seven of them high-severity.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooking violation is the one with the most direct path to a sick customer. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a single undercooked serving is enough to cause serious illness. At a sports bar where chicken wings and burgers move quickly during a busy service, the volume of undercooked food that can reach tables before anyone catches the problem is significant.
The toxic substance violation sits alongside it in terms of immediate danger. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food prep areas can contaminate surfaces, ingredients, or finished plates without any visible sign. A customer would have no way of knowing.
The illness-reporting failure is a different category of risk. When employees are not required or trained to report symptoms, a worker with norovirus can transmit the virus to dozens of customers through a single shift. Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, and it spreads through exactly the kind of gap this violation describes.
The inadequate handwashing facilities violation compounds every other risk on the list. Without functioning handwashing infrastructure, the food contact surface violations, the illness-reporting failure, and the sewage disposal citation all become harder to contain. These violations do not stack independently. They interact.
The Longer Record
The June 1 inspection was not an outlier. State records show 38 inspections on file for Sandbar Sports Grill, with 343 total violations documented across that history.
The most direct comparison is March 19, 2026, less than three months before this inspection, when the restaurant logged nine high-severity violations and five intermediate ones. That visit was followed by a March 20 callback inspection showing one high and two intermediate violations still present. The June 1 inspection came ten weeks later with seven high-severity violations, suggesting the March corrections did not hold.
The November 2025 inspection recorded six high-severity violations. The November 2024 inspection recorded three high-severity violations and five intermediate ones. The pattern across the past two years is not a facility that occasionally slips. It is a facility that cycles through serious violations, corrects enough to pass a callback, and returns to elevated violation counts at the next routine inspection.
The facility has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record.
Open for Business
The June 2 callback inspection, the day after the June 1 visit, showed one high-severity violation and two intermediate violations still present. That is a reduction, but a high-severity citation remained on the books even after the follow-up.
Sandbar Sports Grill at 20305 Old Cutler Road was not ordered closed after the June 1 inspection. It served customers that day, and the days after, with seven high-severity violations on the inspector's clipboard.