MIAMI, FL. Inspectors visiting Acai Express at 6855 Main Street on May 28 found food sourced from an unapproved or unknown supplier, a violation that means no government agency had inspected that food before it reached customers.
The shop walked away with seven high-severity violations and two intermediate citations. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source violation stood alongside a citation for failing to follow parasite destruction procedures. That combination means the shop was serving food that bypassed federal safety inspections and, separately, handling food in a way that could leave live parasites intact.
Inspectors also cited the shop for improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals near food areas. A mislabeled or misplaced chemical near food preparation surfaces is one of the fastest routes to acute poisoning.
The shop had no written employee health policy, meaning there was no formal requirement in place to keep sick workers out of food preparation. Inspectors also documented improper handwashing technique, which means that even when employees washed their hands, the method left pathogens behind.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Multi-use utensils carried the same problem, cited as an intermediate violation. Together, those two citations describe a kitchen where the tools touching customers' food were not being adequately decontaminated between uses.
The shop also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items, the notice that alerts pregnant women, elderly customers, and people with compromised immune systems that certain menu items carry elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is not a paperwork technicality. When food arrives outside the licensed supply chain, there is no traceability. If a customer gets sick, investigators cannot identify the farm, the processor, or the distribution point. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli have all been traced through supply chains, but only when those chains are documented.
The parasite destruction citation compounds that risk. Certain fish, pork, and wild game require specific freezing or cooking protocols to kill parasites including Anisakis and Trichinella. When those protocols are skipped, the parasites can survive and infect anyone who eats the food.
The absence of an employee health policy is a direct transmission risk. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness in the United States, spreads rapidly when infected workers handle food. A written policy is the mechanism that keeps symptomatic employees off the line. Without one, there is no barrier.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and utensils allow bacterial biofilms to form within 24 hours. Those biofilms are resistant to standard cleaning once established, meaning contamination can persist across multiple service days even if the surface looks clean.
The Longer Record
The May 28 inspection was not the first time Acai Express drew serious citations. State records show 14 inspections on file and 88 total violations accumulated across that history.
The most recent prior inspection, in February 2026, produced two high-severity violations. The inspection before that, in December 2025, added two more high-severity citations and one intermediate. Going back to October 2023, a single inspection produced five high-severity violations and four intermediate ones.
The shop has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history. That means every prior round of high-severity violations, including the five-high-severity visit in 2023 and the repeated high-severity citations through 2024 and 2025, resulted in the shop remaining open and operating.
The May 28 visit, with seven high-severity violations, is the worst single inspection in the facility's recorded history. It came three months after a February inspection that itself flagged two high-severity problems, suggesting the violations documented this spring were not a sudden departure from recent practice.
Open for Business
Seven high-severity violations in a single inspection is a significant threshold. The violations documented on May 28 touched nearly every major category of food safety risk: sourcing, parasite control, illness prevention, handwashing, surface sanitation, chemical storage, and consumer disclosure.
State inspectors did not issue an emergency closure order.
Acai Express at 6855 Main Street remained open after the inspection.