YULEE, FL. An inspector visiting Anejo Cocina Mexicana on Homegrown Way on April 28 documented food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means no regulatory agency had inspected that food before it reached customers' plates.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The April 28 inspection produced eight high-severity violations and two intermediate ones, a total of ten citations in a single visit. The high-severity list included employees not reporting symptoms of illness, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. Two separate chemical-handling violations appeared on the same report.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for failing to follow required procedures for specialized processes, for posting no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and for having no person in charge present or performing duties during the visit.
The two intermediate violations involved sewage and waste water disposal and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
Food from an unapproved or unknown source is among the hardest violations to walk back after the fact. When a restaurant sources food outside the regulated supply chain, there is no paper trail, no USDA or FDA inspection record, and no way to trace an illness back to a specific lot or supplier if customers get sick. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli have all been linked to uninspected food sources in multi-state outbreaks.
The employee illness reporting failure compounds that risk directly. Food workers who do not report symptoms, or who are not required to by management, are the most common single cause of multi-victim norovirus and hepatitis A outbreaks. An employee handling food while symptomatic can contaminate every surface and dish they touch during an entire shift.
Two separate chemical violations, improperly stored chemicals and improperly identified or used toxic substances, appeared in the same inspection at Anejo Cocina Mexicana. Chemicals stored near food or mislabeled can cause acute poisoning through cross-contact. The fact that both violations appeared together suggests the problem was not a single misplaced bottle.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, the fourth high-severity citation, mean that bacteria from one food item can transfer directly to the next. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that are not properly sanitized between uses are a documented primary vehicle for cross-contamination. Combined with the sewage disposal and toilet facility violations, the picture on April 28 was of a facility with failures running from the back-of-house prep line to the employee restroom.
The Longer Record
The April 28 inspection did not arrive without warning. State records show 16 total inspections on file for Anejo Cocina Mexicana, with 161 total violations documented across those visits.
The two days immediately surrounding the April 28 inspection tell their own story. On April 27, one day earlier, inspectors cited the restaurant for 10 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations, the single worst inspection in the recent record. On April 30, two days after the inspection at the center of this article, inspectors returned and found 2 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation, suggesting some corrections had been made but high-severity issues persisted across a four-day window.
The pattern reaches back further. In September 2025, an inspection on September 10 produced 16 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations, the highest single-visit count in the available history. A follow-up on September 11 showed 3 high-severity and 1 intermediate, a reduction but not a clean bill. February 2025 brought 5 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The restaurant's one clean inspection in the record, zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, came on April 21, 2025, sandwiched between two stretches of serious citations.
Anejo Cocina Mexicana has never been emergency-closed in the 16 inspections on record.
Still Open
The violations documented on April 28 included food from an uninspected source, employees not required to report illness, chemicals stored or labeled improperly in two separate ways, and no manager present to oversee any of it. The restaurant accumulated those eight high-severity citations on a Tuesday and continued serving customers.