FORT MYERS, FL. Inspectors visiting a Fort Myers Guatemalan restaurant in late September found food sourced from unknown or unapproved suppliers, a kitchen where employees were not reporting illness symptoms, and no person in charge performing oversight duties, yet the restaurant kept its doors open.
The September 30 inspection of Dona Juana Guatemalan Restaurant 2 at 18011 S Tamiami Trail produced seven high-severity violations and two intermediate violations. State inspectors did not order an emergency closure.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious in the inspection record. Inspectors cited food from unapproved or unknown sources, meaning at least some of what was being served that day could not be traced through USDA or FDA-regulated supply chains.
That finding sat alongside documentation that employees were not reporting illness symptoms and that no written employee health policy existed. Both violations were flagged at the high-severity level.
Inspectors also cited improper handwashing technique, food in poor condition or adulterated, and food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized. Multi-use utensils and equipment in poor repair rounded out the nine-violation total.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. When ingredients enter a kitchen outside regulated supply chains, there is no traceability if a customer gets sick. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli outbreaks have been linked specifically to uninspected food sources because contamination that would have been caught at a licensed processor goes undetected.
The illness-reporting violations compound that risk in a direct way. Food workers who do not report symptoms, and kitchens that have no written health policy requiring them to do so, are the documented leading cause of multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, which sickens an estimated 20 million Americans annually, spreads primarily through infected food handlers who continue working.
Improper handwashing technique matters separately from whether handwashing happened at all. Studies show that even workers who attempt to wash their hands can leave significant pathogen loads on their hands if technique is inadequate, and those pathogens transfer to food contact surfaces and then to food. At Dona Juana Guatemalan Restaurant 2, inspectors found both the technique failure and the surfaces themselves were not properly sanitized.
Equipment in poor repair creates a problem that cleaning alone cannot solve. Cracks, chips, and corroded areas in food-contact equipment harbor bacteria in spaces that standard sanitizing cannot reach, allowing contamination to persist across service periods.
The Longer Record
The September inspection is only the second on record for Dona Juana Guatemalan Restaurant 2. The restaurant's full inspection history spans two visits and 18 total violations.
The first inspection, conducted on March 17, 2026, produced two high-severity violations and no intermediate violations. Six months later, the violation count from a single visit reached seven high-severity citations. The trajectory from two serious violations to seven in one inspection, across a facility with only two inspections on record, is a significant escalation in a short operating history.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed. That fact is harder to hold alongside the September findings, which included food of unknown origin and a kitchen operating without any documented illness-reporting system for employees.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented nine violations on September 30, seven of them at the highest severity level. They left the restaurant open.
The inspection record now shows a facility that, in its second year of documented oversight, is serving food from sources inspectors could not verify, in a kitchen where employees are not required by any written policy to report when they are sick, and where the person responsible for overseeing food safety was not performing those duties when inspectors arrived.
Dona Juana Guatemalan Restaurant 2 was open when inspectors left.
