FORT PIERCE, FL. A state inspector walked into Cafe772 FP on Orange Avenue on September 24, 2026, and documented that food was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures, a violation that allows Salmonella in poultry to survive below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and reach a customer's plate. The restaurant was not closed.
That single finding was one of seven high-severity violations cited during the inspection, along with four intermediate violations. Eleven violations in total, and the cafe on 3304 Orange Ave. remained in operation.
What Inspectors Found
The handwashing violations are worth reading carefully. Inspectors cited employees both for not washing their hands adequately and for using improper technique when they did wash. That is two separate violations for the same act, meaning employees were observed either skipping handwashing or performing it incorrectly, and in some cases both.
The parasite destruction citation adds another layer. Proper freezing or cooking protocols are required to kill parasites in fish, pork, and wild game. Without them, Anisakis and tapeworm larvae can survive into the finished dish.
The time-as-public-health-control violation means food was held in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, without adequate tracking or discard procedures. When time replaces temperature as the control method, there are strict rules about how long food can remain in that range. Those rules were not being followed.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is, according to public health data, the leading cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks. Norovirus spreads directly from an infected food handler to every dish that person touches. Without a written policy requiring workers to disclose symptoms, there is no system to pull a sick employee off the line before customers are exposed.
Undercooking compounds that risk. If a food worker is ill and the food they prepared also fails to reach a pathogen-killing temperature, two independent failure points exist in the same meal. Salmonella in undercooked poultry causes roughly 1.35 million infections in the United States each year, according to the CDC.
The utensil and sanitizer violations at Cafe772 mean the surfaces meant to be clean between uses were not. Bacterial biofilms form on improperly cleaned utensils within 24 hours and resist standard sanitizing once established. Improper sanitizer concentration, either too weak or too strong, leaves pathogens alive on food-contact surfaces regardless of how thoroughly staff scrub them.
Inadequate toilet facilities, cited as an intermediate violation, matters because restroom access and condition directly affect whether employees wash their hands at all. A facility with broken or poorly maintained restrooms creates a practical barrier to the hygiene the other violations already show was failing.
The Longer Record
The September 2026 inspection was not an aberration. State records show Cafe772 has been inspected 17 times and has accumulated 149 total violations across those visits. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern in those records is consistent. On April 24, 2025, inspectors cited 13 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations in a single visit, the worst single-day count in the facility's history on record. That inspection was followed one day later, on April 25, 2025, by a follow-up that still found 4 high-severity violations. Six months after that, on September 24, 2025, exactly one year before the current inspection, the cafe recorded 6 high and 4 intermediate violations.
The March 2024 inspection produced 7 high and 5 intermediate violations. The November 2023 inspection produced 7 high violations. The current inspection, September 2026, produced 7 high and 4 intermediate violations.
High-severity violations in the range of 4 to 13 have appeared in every inspection year on record. The specific categories, handwashing, illness reporting, temperature control, have recurred across multiple inspection cycles without producing a closure order.
Still Open
State inspectors documented seven high-severity violations at Cafe772 on September 24, 2026, including food cooked below required temperatures, employees not reporting illness symptoms, and no written health policy to require them to do so.
The cafe was not closed.
It was the fourteenth time in 17 recorded inspections that high-severity violations were cited at this address. The total violation count across those inspections stands at 149.
The doors remained open on Orange Avenue.
