COCOA, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors visited Cafe De Havana, a convenience store on the edge of opening its doors to customers, and found the person in charge unable to answer basic questions about keeping sick employees out of the food supply.
The inspection, conducted on March 10, 2026, was a preoperational review, the kind of visit meant to confirm a new establishment is ready to handle food safely before the public walks in. Cafe De Havana met the overall preoperational requirements and was cleared to operate. But the visit turned up three violations, two of them priority foundation level, that pointed to gaps in the most fundamental food safety knowledge.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector's notes on the employee health violation are direct: "Person in charge is unable to answer questions on employee health." That is not a paperwork gap. It means the person running the store on inspection day could not demonstrate knowledge of when a sick worker should be kept away from food and customers.
The second priority foundation violation was equally concrete. The inspector noted the establishment "did not have any written procedures for cleanup of vomit and diarrhea." For a store handling packaged food and ice that customers will consume, the absence of a cleanup protocol for bodily fluid contamination is a specific, documented gap, not a technicality.
The third violation noted that no certified food protection manager certificate was provided during the visit.
None of the three violations were corrected on site during the inspection. The inspector documented providing industry guidance materials for all three issues, but documentation handed over during a visit is not the same as a demonstrated fix.
What These Violations Mean
The employee health violation carries the most direct public health weight. When a person in charge cannot correctly answer questions about employee illness, it signals that the store may not have a functioning policy for one of the most basic transmission risks in any food environment: a sick worker handling products that go straight to a customer. Norovirus, Salmonella, and Hepatitis A can all move from an infected food worker to a consumer through direct contact with packaged goods or ice.
The vomit and diarrhea cleanup procedures requirement exists for the same reason. Norovirus in particular is extraordinarily contagious and can survive on surfaces for extended periods. A store without a written cleanup protocol has no defined process for containing contamination if an incident occurs, no guidance on which disinfectants to use, and no instruction for staff on how to protect themselves during cleanup. That gap does not just affect the person who gets sick in the store. It affects every customer who touches a surface or picks up a product afterward.
The certified food protection manager requirement is the structural foundation underneath both of those issues. A certified manager is trained in exactly the knowledge the inspector found missing: employee health policies, contamination response, and temperature and sourcing controls. The absence of that certification at the preoperational stage means the store opened without anyone on staff who had formally demonstrated competency in food safety management.
The Longer Record
This was Cafe De Havana's preoperational inspection, meaning it represents the beginning of the facility's documented regulatory history with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. There is no prior inspection record to draw on, no pattern of repeat violations, and no history of emergency closures.
That context matters in two directions. On one hand, a new establishment encountering these violations at the preoperational stage has the opportunity to address them before accumulating a longer record of the same problems. On the other hand, the two priority foundation violations found here are precisely the kind that tend to reappear in follow-up inspections when the underlying training and documentation gaps are not fully resolved.
The inspector noted that documentation was provided on site for all three violations. Whether the store subsequently obtained a certified food protection manager, trained the person in charge on employee health policies, and produced written vomit and diarrhea cleanup procedures is not reflected in this inspection record.
What Remains Unresolved
Cafe De Havana was cleared to open following this inspection, which means the preoperational threshold was met. But none of the three violations documented on March 10, 2026 were corrected during the visit itself.
The person in charge who could not answer employee health questions was still the person in charge when the inspector left.