BOCA RATON, FL. An employee at Carmela Coffee Bric on T Rex Avenue was found not reporting symptoms of illness to management during a September 25 inspection, a violation state records classify as an outbreak enabler and one of six high-severity citations the facility collected that day.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation documented the six high-severity findings along with one intermediate violation during the visit. The facility was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting violation and the two handwashing citations arrived together, which is significant. Inspectors found both that employees were not adequately washing their hands and that the technique used during any washing attempt was incorrect. Those two findings, layered on top of an employee not disclosing illness symptoms, describe a facility where the most basic barriers against spreading disease to customers were not functioning.
Inspectors also cited the shop for failing to maintain adequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, carry traceability requirements precisely because they are often consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without proper records, there is no way to trace the source of a shellfish-linked illness back to its origin.
Food was also found not cooked to the required minimum temperature, and the facility had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items. Those two violations compound each other. Customers who might have avoided undercooked food if warned were given no warning.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting violation is the one public health officials worry about most. A food worker who has norovirus and continues handling food without telling management can expose every customer served that shift. Norovirus spreads through trace contact, and a single infected employee working a full service day can generate dozens of cases. The violation at Carmela Coffee Bric on September 25 does not confirm anyone was sick, but it documents that the system for catching that situation was not in place.
The two handwashing violations compound that risk directly. Inadequate handwashing and improper technique are not the same citation. The first means employees were not washing hands when they should. The second means that even when a washing attempt occurred, it was done incorrectly, leaving pathogens on hands that then contacted food or surfaces. Together, they describe a facility where hand hygiene was failing at both the procedural and technical level.
The undercooked food citation carries its own distinct danger. Salmonella in poultry, for example, survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. A customer who ordered something that looked fully cooked had no way of knowing it had not reached a safe internal temperature. The absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items meant customers who might have made a different choice were not given the information to do so.
The toilet facility violation rounds out a picture of infrastructure that was not supporting basic hygiene. Inadequate restroom facilities reduce the likelihood that employees wash hands after using the restroom, which connects directly back to the two handwashing violations already on the report.
The Longer Record
Carmela Coffee Bric: Inspection History
September 25 was not the first time inspectors found serious problems at this location. The facility has now been inspected 11 times and has accumulated 43 total violations across those visits. It has never been emergency-closed.
The March 2026 inspection, just six months before the September visit, produced five high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. That inspection and the September inspection together represent the two worst visits in the facility's record, and they occurred back to back. Prior to that, October 2025 showed two high-severity violations, and December 2023 showed three. The facility cleared inspections cleanly only twice in its recorded history, in November 2024 and March 2023.
The pattern across 11 inspections is not one of a facility that had a bad stretch and corrected course. High-severity violations appeared in eight of the 11 inspections on record. The two most recent inspections are also the two most serious.
Still Open
State inspectors left Carmela Coffee Bric open on September 25 after documenting six high-severity violations, including an employee not reporting illness, food not cooked to minimum temperature, and no consumer advisory for undercooked items.
The facility has never been emergency-closed in 11 inspections spanning five years.
