MIAMI, FL. Inspectors visiting Bacardi Mojito Bar in Concourse D at Miami International Airport on August 12 found employees who were not properly washing their hands, shellfish without required identification records, and food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, all in a single visit that produced six high-severity violations. The bar remained open.
The person in charge was either absent or not performing required duties during the inspection. That finding topped a list of six high-priority citations that also included employees not reporting illness symptoms, two separate handwashing violations, missing shellfish traceability records, and improperly cleaned food contact surfaces.
What Inspectors Found
Two of the six high-priority violations involved handwashing, which inspectors cited separately as inadequate frequency and improper technique. Both were documented in the same visit.
The handwashing citations are distinct problems. The first means employees were not washing their hands when required. The second means that when they did wash, they were not doing it correctly. Both failures can leave pathogens on hands that then transfer to drinks and food served to customers.
The shell stock violation is the kind of citation that tends to get overlooked next to something as visceral as dirty hands, but it carries its own serious risk. Shellfish served without proper identification tags cannot be traced if customers report getting sick. Inspectors also cited improper use of wiping cloths and inadequate ventilation among the two intermediate violations.
What These Violations Mean
The absence of a person in charge is not a paperwork problem. CDC data cited in the inspection records indicates that establishments operating without active managerial control have three times as many critical violations on average. Every other violation found on August 12 is easier to understand in that context: nobody was actively enforcing the standards.
The illness-reporting failure is the violation with the most direct potential for harm to a large number of people. Food workers who do not report symptoms are the leading cause of multi-victim outbreaks. At an airport bar serving travelers from dozens of countries on a single shift, a sick employee who is not identified and removed can expose an unusually wide population before anyone knows there is a problem.
The shellfish traceability gap matters because oysters, clams, and mussels are often consumed raw or lightly cooked. If a customer gets sick from contaminated shellfish and there are no identification records on file, public health investigators cannot determine the source, cannot issue a recall, and cannot warn other restaurants that may have received product from the same harvest. The record is the only link between the customer and the farm.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned and sanitized are a direct vehicle for bacterial transfer between whatever was prepared previously and whatever is being prepared next. At a bar, that includes the surfaces used to cut garnishes and handle ice.
The Longer Record
August 12 was not a bad day in an otherwise clean history. State records show 24 inspections on file for the Bacardi Mojito Bar, with 167 total violations accumulated across that record.
High-severity violations have appeared in every single inspection documented in the prior history provided, going back to at least August 2023. That visit produced four high-priority citations and three intermediate ones. The counts have fluctuated but have never reached zero.
The August 12 inspection, with six high-severity violations, was the worst single-visit total in at least the two years of records reviewed. The very next day, August 13, a follow-up inspection found two high-severity violations and one intermediate still on record, meaning the facility had not fully resolved its most serious problems within 24 hours.
The bar has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history. That is a fact worth holding alongside the 167 cumulative violations and the pattern of high-severity citations that has continued across every inspection cycle reviewed.
Still Open
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when they determine a facility poses an immediate threat to public health. After finding six high-severity violations at the Bacardi Mojito Bar on August 12, including a management failure, an illness-reporting breakdown, two handwashing violations, missing shellfish records, and unsanitized food contact surfaces, they did not exercise that authority.
The bar served customers that day. It served customers the next day, when two high-severity violations remained on the books.
Travelers moving through Concourse D at Miami International had no way to know any of this.
