DORAL, FL. State inspectors visiting Central Park Food Station on NW 79th Avenue on July 13, 2026, found that employees were not properly destroying parasites in food, a failure that can leave customers exposed to live Anisakis worms, tapeworm, and Trichinella in fish and pork dishes. The restaurant collected six high-severity violations and three intermediate violations that day. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction violation was not the only serious finding. Inspectors also cited the facility for inadequate handwashing by food employees and for improper hand and arm washing technique, two separate citations covering both whether employees washed their hands and how they washed them when they did.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep tables, and similar surfaces that touch food directly are among the most reliable routes for bacterial transfer between raw and ready-to-eat items.
The facility also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. Customers ordering dishes with raw fish, undercooked meat, or runny eggs had no written notice that those items carry elevated risk.
On the intermediate side, inspectors found the cooling and cold holding equipment inadequate, ventilation and lighting deficient, and equipment in poor repair. Cracked or corroded surfaces on equipment in poor condition create spaces where bacteria can lodge and survive routine cleaning.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction citation is among the most specific and consequential violations an inspector can document. When fish or pork is not frozen to required temperatures for the required duration before service, parasites including Anisakis, tapeworm larvae, and Trichinella can survive into the finished dish. A customer eating a portion of undercooked fish at Central Park Food Station on July 13 had no guarantee those procedures had been followed.
The two handwashing violations, cited separately, compound the risk. Inspectors distinguished between employees not washing their hands at all and employees washing them incorrectly. Studies show that even a nominal handwashing attempt leaves significant pathogen load on hands if the technique is wrong. Norovirus, Salmonella, and E. coli are all transmitted through hand contact with food.
The absence of an employee health policy removes the procedural backstop that keeps sick workers out of the kitchen. Without a written policy, there is no formal mechanism requiring an employee showing symptoms of Norovirus or Hepatitis A to report to a manager or stay home. Those illnesses spread directly from food handler to customer.
Inadequate cooling equipment is not a paperwork problem. If refrigeration units cannot hold food at or below 41 degrees Fahrenheit, food enters what regulators call the danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, where bacteria double roughly every 20 minutes.
The Longer Record
The July 13 inspection was not an outlier. State records show 29 inspections on file for Central Park Food Station, with 288 total violations accumulated across that history.
The most recent prior inspection, on December 2, 2025, produced five high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The inspection before that, on August 7, 2025, found one high-severity violation. The July 28, 2025 inspection found five high-severity violations and two intermediate violations, and the July 29, 2025 inspection found three high-severity violations. Four inspections in roughly five months, and all but one included multiple high-severity citations.
The pattern extends further back. An August 2024 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations, the highest single-visit high count in the recent record. A December 2024 visit found three high-severity and two intermediate violations. The only clean inspection in the recent history was July 13, 2023, which produced zero violations at either severity level.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. Despite accumulating 288 violations over 29 inspections and logging high-severity violations in seven of the eight most recent inspections on record, state regulators have not ordered Central Park Food Station to shut its doors.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when inspectors determine a facility poses an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations, including failures in parasite destruction, handwashing, and food surface sanitation, did not meet that threshold on July 13, 2026.
Central Park Food Station served customers that day, and the days after it.
