ORLANDO, FL. When state inspectors walked into Cuba Libre on International Drive on May 26, 2026, they found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, no written employee health policy, and no one in charge performing their duties. The restaurant, which sits inside a busy tourist corridor at 9101 International Drive, was not closed.
Six of the nine violations documented that day were classified high-severity. Three were intermediate. The facility remained open through all of it.
What Inspectors Found
The most direct danger documented that day was food not cooked to required minimum temperatures. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause severe illness within hours of consumption.
Alongside that, inspectors found no written employee health policy and documented that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness. Those two violations together describe a kitchen where there is no formal system to keep sick workers away from food, and no documentation that employees know they are required to stay home when ill.
Inspectors also found no allergen awareness demonstrated by staff. Food allergies affect 32 million Americans and cause roughly 30,000 emergency room visits annually. A kitchen with no allergen awareness protocol cannot reliably protect a customer with a life-threatening allergy from cross-contact.
No consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods was posted, meaning customers, including pregnant women, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system, had no notice that some items on the menu may not be fully cooked.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of violations documented at Cuba Libre on May 26 describes a set of overlapping failure points, not isolated incidents. Undercooked food is the most immediate risk: bacteria that survive insufficient cooking temperatures reach a customer's plate intact.
The absence of an employee health policy compounds that risk in a specific way. Without a written policy, there is no mechanism to exclude a worker who is vomiting, has diarrhea, or has been diagnosed with Norovirus from handling food. Norovirus is responsible for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year. The CDC identifies sick food workers as the leading cause of multi-victim outbreaks.
No person in charge performing duties is not a paperwork violation. CDC data shows establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with engaged management. The absence of oversight is the condition that allows the other violations to exist.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours. Those biofilms resist standard sanitizers and can transfer pathogens to every dish that touches the utensil afterward.
The Longer Record
Cuba Libre has 25 inspections on record in the state database, accumulating 189 total violations. It has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern across the most recent eight inspections is consistent. In December 2025, inspectors documented 10 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate, the worst single inspection in the available record. In November 2024, there were 7 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate. In May 2024, 5 high-severity violations and 1 intermediate. The facility has logged high-severity violations in every inspection on record going back to June 2022.
The violations are not random. Employee health policy failures, management presence failures, and food temperature issues recur across multiple inspection cycles. These are not new problems surfacing for the first time in 2026.
The December 2025 inspection, five months before this one, produced 10 high-severity violations. The May 2026 inspection produced 6. There is no inspection in the available history that shows Cuba Libre clearing a high-severity violation count of zero.
The Facility Remained Open
State inspectors do not automatically close a restaurant for high-severity violations. Emergency closure requires a finding of an imminent threat to public health, a standard the state determines on a case-by-case basis.
Cuba Libre has never met that threshold across 25 documented inspections.
On May 26, 2026, with food not cooked to required temperatures, no illness policy in place, no allergen awareness on staff, and no person in charge performing duties, the restaurant at 9101 International Drive stayed open for service.