CUTLER BAY, FL. Back in January 2026, a state inspector walked into the Chevron convenience store in Cutler Bay and found a food establishment running without a valid food permit, no thermometer to check food temperatures anywhere on the premises, and no written plan for what employees should do if a customer vomited or had a diarrheal incident inside the store.
The January 21 inspection was triggered specifically because the facility was operating without a valid food permit, a violation of Florida Statute 500.12. The inspector noted that an application had been submitted and gave the store ten days to remit the appropriate fee. That did not resolve the underlying picture the inspection revealed.
What Inspectors Found
The seven violations recorded across the inspection touched nearly every layer of basic food safety infrastructure. Four were classified as priority foundation violations, meaning they represent gaps in the foundational systems a food establishment is required to have in place before anything else.
The inspector found no probe thermometer anywhere in the store, meaning there was no way for employees to verify that food being held, cooled, or reheated was at a safe temperature. The inspector also noted no sanitizer test strips available to measure the concentration of the sanitizing solution being used to clean food-contact surfaces.
No employee health policy was on file. The inspector noted that no copy was available in the establishment and provided one by email during the visit. Similarly, no written procedures existed for responding to a vomit or diarrheal discharge event, a document Florida food establishments are required to maintain. That guidance was also provided by email on the spot.
Hand wash signs were absent at three separate locations: the hand wash sink in the food service area, a hand wash sink in the backroom next to the ware wash sink, and the hand wash sink in the employee unisex restroom. No certified food protection manager was present or on record at the facility.
None of the violations were marked as corrected on site in the inspection record, with the exception of the two items for which the inspector provided documentation by email during the visit.
What These Violations Mean
The absence of a probe thermometer is not a paperwork gap. It means that no one at this store had a reliable way to confirm whether food products requiring temperature control were being held safely. Harmful bacteria multiply rapidly in food held between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit. Without a thermometer, temperature abuse can go undetected until someone gets sick.
The missing sanitizer test strips matter for a related reason. Sanitizing solutions that are too weak do not kill pathogens on food-contact surfaces. Solutions that are too strong can leave chemical residues on surfaces that touch food. Test strips are the only way to know which problem you have. The inspector found none at this Cutler Bay location.
The lack of an employee health policy represents a direct transmission risk. A policy of this kind establishes when a sick employee must be excluded from food handling duties. Without it, a worker with a gastrointestinal illness has no formal guidance telling them to stay away from food. The inspector noted there was no such policy available in the establishment before providing one electronically.
The absence of written vomit and diarrhea cleanup procedures may seem procedural, but it carries real public health weight. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in retail food environments, spreads easily through aerosolized particles from vomit. Without a documented cleanup protocol, employees may not know to use the correct disinfectant concentration or to restrict the area during cleanup.
The Longer Record
The inspection history for this location is short. State records show one prior FDACS inspection on file, conducted on September 21, 2023, which recorded a single violation and resulted in a met-inspection-requirements outcome.
That means this January 2026 inspection, with seven violations and an operating-without-a-permit finding, represents a significant departure from the store's only prior recorded baseline. A facility with one inspection on record and a clean outcome does not carry the weight of a chronic repeat offender, but it also means there is no established pattern of correction to point to.
What the record does show is that more than two years passed between the 2023 inspection and this one, and that during the period leading up to January 2026, the store's food permit had lapsed to the point that the inspection itself was triggered by the unlicensed operation.
What Remained Unresolved
The inspection record shows zero violations corrected on site in the formal sense. The two items addressed during the visit, the employee health policy and the vomit and diarrhea procedures, were resolved by the inspector emailing documents to the facility, not by the store producing materials it already had.
The store left the January 21 inspection without a thermometer, without sanitizer test strips, without hand wash signs at any of its three sinks, without a certified food protection manager, and still in the process of resolving its permit status.