ST. AUGUSTINE, FL. At least one employee at T Smith Asian Bistro on A1A South was not reporting illness symptoms to management, according to state inspection records from May 6, 2026, a failure that health officials identify as the single leading cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks.
That was one of six high-severity violations inspectors cited that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting failure was not the only violation threatening customers directly. Inspectors also found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning that food had bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely before reaching customers' plates.
Shell stock, which includes oysters, clams, and mussels, lacked proper identification records. Those records are the only mechanism that allows health officials to trace a shellfish illness back to its harvest bed.
Food was also found not cooked to the required minimum temperature. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted to warn diners that raw or undercooked items were on the menu. And toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food areas.
The single intermediate violation involved multi-use utensils that had not been properly cleaned.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting failure is the violation that most directly puts a restaurant's customers at risk. When a food worker infected with norovirus, hepatitis A, or a similar pathogen continues handling food without reporting symptoms, every dish that employee touches becomes a potential transmission vehicle. A single infected worker has caused outbreaks involving dozens of customers in documented cases across the country.
The unapproved food source violation compounds that risk. Food that enters a kitchen without passing through licensed distributors or inspected suppliers carries no paper trail. If a customer becomes ill, investigators have no supply chain to trace. Listeria and Salmonella contamination events that go undetected at the source level are precisely what USDA and FDA inspections are designed to catch.
The shellfish traceability failure is particularly serious in a restaurant that serves Asian cuisine, where raw or lightly cooked shellfish frequently appears on menus. Shellfish harvested from contaminated waters and consumed raw can transmit Vibrio bacteria, which can cause life-threatening illness within 24 hours. Without shell stock tags, there is no way to know where the shellfish came from or whether the harvest area was approved.
The undercooking violation and the missing consumer advisory belong together. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, immunocompromised, or very young face the highest risk from undercooked proteins. A consumer advisory gives those customers the information they need to make a safe choice. Without one, they have no way to know they are eating food that did not reach the temperature required to kill Salmonella or other pathogens.
The Longer Record
The May 6 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show the bistro has been inspected 31 times and has accumulated 132 total violations across its history, with no prior emergency closures.
The pattern of high-severity violations runs consistently through recent years. Inspectors found five high-severity violations in May 2025, five more in December 2024, and five again in June 2024. The May 6, 2026 inspection, with six high-severity violations, represents the highest single-visit high-severity count in the recent record.
Between those clusters, the restaurant passed inspections cleanly. November 2025 and May 28, 2025 both came back with zero high or intermediate violations. That oscillation, clean one visit and then a wave of serious citations the next, is a pattern that suggests problems are addressed for the inspection and then allowed to return.
A follow-up inspection on May 11, 2026, five days after the six-violation visit, found one high-severity violation remaining. That is an improvement. It still means a high-severity violation was present at the follow-up.
Open for Business
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when violations pose an immediate threat to public health. On May 6, 2026, with six high-severity violations on the books at T Smith Asian Bistro, including an employee failing to report illness symptoms, food from unknown sources, shellfish with no traceability records, and food not cooked to required temperatures, they did not use it.
The restaurant served customers that day, and the days that followed.
