CORAL SPRINGS, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Spikey Ty on Coral Ridge Drive and documented nine high-severity violations, including food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, an employee who had not reported illness symptoms, and food that had not reached required minimum cooking temperatures. The restaurant was not closed.
Not a single intermediate violation was cited. Every one of the nine violations inspectors recorded that day fell into the highest severity category the state assigns.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation stands out in a restaurant that serves seafood. Inspectors cited food arriving from an unapproved or unknown supplier, meaning that product bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely. If a customer later became sick, there would be no supply chain to trace.
That concern compounds directly with the shellfish records violation. Oysters, clams, and mussels are consumed raw or lightly cooked, and state law requires restaurants to keep shellstock identification tags so that any illness can be traced back to the harvest bed. Inspectors found those records were inadequate.
The food temperature violation added a third layer. When food does not reach required minimum internal temperatures, pathogens including Salmonella survive. In a seafood context, that risk extends to shellfish that are already high-risk foods even when properly handled.
Inspectors also documented improper handwashing technique, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, food in poor condition or mislabeled, no written employee health policy, an employee who had not reported illness symptoms, and no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items. Nine violations. All high-severity.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of an unreported sick employee and no written health policy is one of the more direct outbreak pathways inspectors can document. Food workers who continue working while ill are the leading cause of multi-victim Norovirus outbreaks. A written health policy is the mechanism that gives workers a clear instruction to stay home and managers a framework to enforce it. Without one, the policy exists only informally, if at all.
Improper handwashing technique is a violation that surprises some readers, because it implies a worker attempted to wash their hands. The problem is that a rushed or incomplete technique leaves pathogens on skin even after the attempt, then transfers them to food or surfaces. Combined with improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, those two violations create overlapping contamination routes.
The consumer advisory violation matters specifically for vulnerable diners. Elderly customers, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems face significantly higher risk from raw or undercooked seafood. A posted advisory is not a guarantee of safety, but it is the disclosure that allows a high-risk diner to make an informed choice. At Spikey Ty in April, that disclosure was absent.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Spikey Ty has accumulated 192 violations across 24 inspections on record, and the pattern of high-severity citations runs through nearly every visit in recent years.
In September 2025, inspectors found six high-severity and one intermediate violation. In February 2025, two inspections were conducted on consecutive days, the first turning up five high-severity and two intermediate violations, the second finding two high-severity and one intermediate. The restaurant has logged high-severity violations in every inspection dating back to at least August 2023, with the sole exception of a single August 2023 visit that produced only one intermediate citation.
The categories have repeated. Food sourcing, temperature control, and illness reporting are not new concerns at this address. Inspectors flagged high-severity violations in August 2024, January 2024, and February 2023 as well.
Despite that record, Spikey Ty has never been emergency-closed. Not once across 24 inspections.
Still Open
The April 17 inspection produced the highest single-visit high-severity count in the facility's documented history: nine violations, all at the top tier of severity, covering food sourcing, employee illness, cooking temperatures, shellfish records, surface sanitation, handwashing, food condition, health policy, and consumer disclosure.
The state did not order the restaurant closed.
Spikey Ty on Coral Ridge Drive continued operating after inspectors left that day.