FORT MYERS, FL. Employees at a Fort Myers soul food restaurant were not reporting symptoms of illness to management, state records show, one of six high-severity violations documented at Fancy's Southern Cafe on Salrose Lane during a September 16 inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection at the Suite 101 location off Salrose Lane turned up a total of 11 violations, six of them high-severity and five intermediate. Inspectors cited the restaurant for having no written employee health policy, employees failing to report illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing, improper handwashing technique, food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and toxic chemicals stored improperly near food. Despite that list, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation allowed the restaurant to remain in operation.
What Inspectors Found
The handwashing violations are particularly notable because they appeared twice on the same inspection report. Inspectors cited both inadequate handwashing and improper technique, meaning employees were not washing their hands often enough and, when they did wash them, were not doing it correctly.
The toxic chemical storage violation adds a separate category of risk. State records describe chemicals stored improperly near food, a condition that can cause acute poisoning if a mislabeled or misplaced chemical contaminates food or a food surface.
Inspectors also documented improper sewage or wastewater disposal, a violation that carries a risk of fecal contamination spreading through the facility. That citation, combined with the handwashing failures, created overlapping pathways for contamination on a single afternoon.
What These Violations Mean
The two illness-related violations, no written health policy and employees not reporting symptoms, work together in a way that state health officials describe as an outbreak enabler. Without a formal policy requiring workers to disclose when they are sick, there is no mechanism to pull an ill employee off the line before they handle food. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads most efficiently through exactly this gap.
The handwashing findings compound that risk. Improper technique, even when an employee makes an attempt to wash, leaves pathogens on the hands. At Fancy's Southern Cafe, inspectors found both that workers were not washing often enough and that the washing they did perform was inadequate. Those two failures together mean contaminated hands were almost certainly touching food.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned or sanitized create a third route. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and equipment that carry bacterial residue from one use to the next can transfer pathogens to every item that touches them afterward. Paired with utensils that inspectors separately cited for not being properly cleaned, the picture on September 16 was one of compounding contamination risk across multiple points in the kitchen.
The improper sewage citation stands apart from the others in kind. Raw sewage or wastewater handled incorrectly inside a food service facility introduces fecal bacteria into an environment where food is being prepared. That violation alone has triggered emergency closures at other Florida restaurants.
The Longer Record
The September 16 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Fancy's Southern Cafe has been inspected 34 times and has accumulated 247 total violations. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern of high-severity violations extends back through every recent inspection on record. On November 5, 2025, inspectors documented six high-severity and five intermediate violations, an identical count to the September 16 inspection. The three inspections conducted in a single week in March 2025, on the 5th, 6th, and 13th, showed seven high-severity violations on the first visit, four on the second, and three on the third. A January 2026 inspection found five high-severity violations.
That cluster of inspections in early March 2025 is itself telling. Three visits in nine days, each finding high-severity violations, suggests a facility that was struggling to meet standards even under close scrutiny. The violations in those visits were not resolved quickly enough to avoid a return trip.
The September 17 follow-up inspection, conducted the day after the inspection at the center of this story, found three high-severity and three intermediate violations still present. The restaurant remained open after that visit as well.
Still Open
Fancy's Southern Cafe drew six high-severity violations on September 16, 2026, including employees not reporting illness and toxic chemicals stored near food. It was not closed. A follow-up inspection the next day found violations still present. The restaurant continued to serve customers.
