DELRAY BEACH, FL. State inspectors visited Burt & Max's Bar & Grille at 9089 W Atlantic Ave on July 23 and found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, no written employee illness policy, workers not reporting symptoms, and inadequate handwashing facilities, all in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection produced 8 high-severity violations and 1 intermediate violation. Under Florida's inspection framework, a single high-severity violation can trigger an emergency closure if the risk is deemed imminent enough. Eight did not.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate there. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. A plate of chicken that looks done and is not is indistinguishable to the customer eating it.
Alongside that, inspectors cited improper use of time as a public health control. When a restaurant uses time rather than temperature to manage food safety, the food is allowed to sit in the bacterial growth zone between 41 and 135 degrees for a defined window, typically four hours, after which it must be discarded. Inspectors found that protocol was not being followed correctly.
The shell stock violation adds a separate layer of risk. Oysters, clams, and mussels served raw or lightly cooked carry a traceability requirement: the harvest tags must be kept on file so that if a customer gets sick, the source can be identified and pulled. Without those records, there is no way to trace an illness back to a contaminated harvest lot.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy, no illness reporting, and inadequate handwashing at Burt & Max's describes a kitchen where a sick worker could prepare food without any structural barrier stopping them. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States annually, spreads primarily through exactly this route: an infected food handler who does not know they are required to report symptoms, or who has no policy telling them to stay home.
The handwashing findings compound this. Inspectors cited both inadequate facilities and improper technique. That means the physical infrastructure for hand hygiene was deficient, and even when handwashing was attempted, it was not being done correctly. Pathogens can survive an incomplete handwashing attempt.
The absence of a person in charge actively performing their duties ties these violations together. CDC data shows establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with engaged management. At Burt & Max's on July 23, the inspection record reflects what that looks like in practice.
Multi-use utensils that are not properly cleaned develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours. Those biofilms are resistant to standard sanitizers once established, meaning the contamination compounds over time rather than being reset with each cleaning cycle.
The Longer Record
The July 23 inspection is not an outlier. It is the worst single inspection in the facility's recent history, but the pattern behind it goes back years.
Burt & Max's has 34 inspections on record and 179 total violations documented across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The eight most recent inspections before July 23 each produced high-severity violations. The February 2026 visit found 5 high-severity violations. The August 2025 routine inspection found 5 high-severity violations one day after a separate visit found 1. The February 2024 inspection found 5 high-severity violations. The pattern does not show a restaurant that had a bad day in July.
The June 2026 inspection, just five weeks before the July visit, found 2 high-severity violations. Whatever was cited then did not prevent 8 high-severity violations from appearing at the next inspection.
Open for Business
Florida's inspection system gives inspectors the authority to order an emergency closure when a violation poses an immediate threat to public health. The threshold is not a fixed number of violations. It is a judgment about imminent risk.
On July 23, inspectors documented undercooked food, no illness reporting system, workers not disclosing symptoms, compromised handwashing infrastructure, improper handwashing technique, missing shellfish traceability records, misused time controls, no active manager, and improperly cleaned utensils.
Burt & Max's Bar & Grille remained open.
