PALM BAY, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Divine Grace Caribbean Restaurant on Ermerson Drive and documented that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness before handling food, a failure that public health officials rank as the single leading cause of multi-victim outbreaks. The restaurant, which had been emergency-closed twice for roach activity in prior years, was not closed this time. It remained open.
The April 8 inspection produced 7 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations, a total of 12 citations in a single visit.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting violation was not the only one involving direct contact between employees and food. Inspectors also cited inadequate handwashing by food employees and, separately, improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning that even when workers attempted to wash their hands, they were not doing it correctly.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near the food operation. Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and other surfaces that touch what customers eat, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Food was documented in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated.
The intermediate violations compounded the picture. Sewage or wastewater was being improperly disposed of, multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned, sanitizing solutions or procedures were inadequate, single-use items were being reused, and ventilation and lighting were insufficient.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting failure is the violation that public health researchers point to most directly when tracing how outbreaks begin. When a food worker with norovirus, salmonella, or hepatitis A continues handling food without reporting symptoms, every dish that leaves the kitchen carries a transmission risk. The problem is invisible to customers and, without a reporting system that actually functions, invisible to management as well.
The handwashing citations made that risk worse. Inspectors documented both that employees were not washing their hands adequately and that when they did wash, their technique was incorrect. Those are two separate failures in the same contamination pathway, and they occurred at a facility that was simultaneously cited for food contact surfaces that were not cleaned or sanitized. Pathogens introduced by hands that were not properly washed had surfaces to live on.
The toxic chemical citation is a different category of danger. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas create a risk of acute poisoning, not the slow-building bacterial illness associated with temperature or handwashing failures, but immediate harm from a chemical entering food or drink. The missing consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items meant that customers with compromised immune systems, elderly diners, pregnant women, and young children had no way to make an informed choice about what they ordered.
The sewage disposal violation is the one that tends to stop readers cold. Improper wastewater disposal means raw sewage, which contains fecal bacteria including E. coli and Clostridioides difficile, was not being routed away from the facility correctly. That violation alone, in many inspections, is sufficient grounds for emergency closure.
The Longer Record
Divine Grace Caribbean Restaurant: Inspection Pattern, 2019 to 2026
The April 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. The facility has accumulated 232 violations across 32 inspections on record, a history that includes two emergency closures, both for roach activity, in 2019 and 2023.
The pattern of high-severity violations did not begin in 2026. The November 2023 inspection also produced 7 high-severity violations. The June 2023 inspection produced 6. The November 2025 inspection produced 6. The facility has not recorded a clean inspection, zero high-severity violations, since March 21, 2023, and that inspection was a post-closure follow-up conducted the day after an emergency shutdown for roaches.
What changed in April 2026 was the intermediate violation count. Five intermediate violations in a single inspection was the highest intermediate total in the recent record, adding sewage disposal failures and reused single-use items to an already serious high-severity list.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented 7 high-severity violations at Divine Grace Caribbean Restaurant on April 8, 2026, including employees not reporting illness, improper sewage disposal, toxic chemicals near food, and food contact surfaces that were not cleaned or sanitized. The facility had been emergency-closed twice before, and its inspection record going back years showed persistent high-severity citations.
It was not closed in April 2026.