CAPE CORAL, FL. Back in February 2026, a state inspector walked into the kitchen of Del Prado Chevron on Del Prado Boulevard and found a carton of raw shell eggs sitting on a shelf directly above ready-to-eat food items inside a cooler near the grill. It was a priority violation. It was also a repeat.
The same cross-contamination problem had been flagged at this location before. This time, as before, it was caught and corrected on site during the visit.
What Inspectors Found
The February 19 inspection turned up five violations total, two of them priority level. Beyond the egg storage problem, inspectors documented a food employee who failed to wash hands after discarding trash and touching the inside of a trash can liner before returning to food preparation at the grill. According to the inspector's notes, the employee washed hands and put on clean gloves only after being instructed to do so.
A third violation involved the hand sink in the ware wash area, where a scoring pad and sponge had been stored inside the basin itself, blocking access. Inspectors also found an accumulation of residue buildup on the spray wand nozzle at the three-compartment sink, and an employee's personal belongings stored inside the cooler alongside food items intended for service.
None of the five violations were corrected before the inspection began. All were addressed during the visit.
The Violations in Context
The egg storage citation carries extra weight because it is a repeat finding. State inspectors had documented the same cross-contamination risk at this location before, and the problem resurfaced anyway. That it was corrected on site both times does not change what the record shows: the kitchen arrangement that puts raw animal protein above ready-to-eat food kept returning.
The hand-washing violation tells a separate story. A food employee touching a trash can liner and then moving directly to grill preparation without washing hands is one of the more direct contamination pathways inspectors document. The inspector's note is specific: the employee engaged in food preparation before being stopped.
The blocked hand sink compounds the hand-washing concern. A sink that cannot be used because it is being treated as storage is not available when it is needed most.
What These Violations Mean
Raw shell eggs are one of the more common carriers of Salmonella. When a carton sits on a shelf above ready-to-eat items, any drip or leak from the eggs, whether from a cracked shell or condensation, can contaminate food that will not be cooked again before a customer eats it. That is why state food safety rules require raw animal products to be stored below, not above, ready-to-eat items. The risk is not hypothetical. It is the reason the violation is classified as a priority citation.
The hand-washing violation at the grill carries a similar logic. Trash cans and their liners are among the most contaminated surfaces in any food service environment. An employee who handles one and then handles food without washing is a direct transfer route for whatever pathogens are present. At a convenience store with a working grill, that means customers buying hot food could be the endpoint of that chain.
Blocked hand sinks may look like a minor housekeeping issue, but they function as a structural barrier to the kind of hand hygiene that prevents the violations above. When the sink is not accessible, the choice to wash hands becomes harder to make quickly, especially during a busy shift.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 inspection was the third FDACS inspection on record at this location in roughly two and a half years. The trajectory is worth noting. In September 2023, inspectors cited 15 violations during a single visit. By September 2024, that number had dropped to seven, with two of those flagged as repeats. In February 2026, the total fell again to five, but the repeat violation in the same cross-contamination category was still present.
The reduction in overall violation counts is measurable. The persistence of the raw animal food storage problem across multiple inspection cycles is also measurable. Inspectors found essentially the same egg-over-ready-to-eat arrangement in 2024 and again in 2026.
The 2023 inspection, which produced 15 violations, represents the highest single-visit total in the location's documented history. That visit resulted in a finding that the establishment met inspection requirements, as did the two subsequent inspections. The February 2026 visit closed the same way.
What the record does not show is a violation-free inspection at any point in the three visits on file. The hand-washing and hand sink violations cited in February 2026 were not flagged as repeats, but the kitchen conditions that produced them, a grill station where employees move between trash handling and food preparation, have been a feature of every inspection cycle documented here.