FLORIDA. A Coral Gables country club, a Burger King, an airport restaurant, and a raw bar on the Florida Keys were among 15 facilities across the state cited for high-severity personnel hygiene violations during the week of September 18 through September 24, 2026, state inspection records show. The violations span three distinct failure categories: employees not reporting symptoms of illness, inadequate or missing employee health policies, and handwashing facilities inspectors deemed insufficient for safe food preparation.
The Violations
The sharpest finding of the week came from Riviera Country Club of Coral Gables on Blue Road, where inspectors cited an employee for not reporting symptoms of illness. That violation places the facility in the most acutely dangerous category in food safety enforcement: a sick worker who stays on the line.
Burger King 5 on NW 27th Avenue in Miami received the same citation. So did China Lee Restaurant on SW 8th Street in Miami. All three facilities were cited for employees failing to report illness symptoms, a violation inspectors classify as a direct outbreak-enabler.
El Meson del Paraiso Restaurant on SW 120th Street in Miami was cited for inadequate handwashing by food employees, a finding that documents the act itself, not just the absence of a policy or a facility. Inspectors observed employees handling food without washing their hands properly.
Two facilities were cited for the physical infrastructure needed to wash hands at all. Anacapri Italian Rest on South Dixie Highway in Miami was found to have inadequate handwashing facilities. La Fresa Francesa on West 3rd Street in Hialeah received the same citation. Without functioning handwashing stations, the question of whether employees are washing their hands becomes secondary.
Nine Restaurants With No Health Policy
The largest single category of violations this week was the absence of a written employee health policy, a document that instructs workers when to report illness, when to stay home, and what symptoms require exclusion from food handling. Nine facilities were cited for having no such policy or an inadequate one.
Panda House Chinese Restaurant on Overseas Highway in Marathon was among them. So was Sunset Grille and Raw Bar on Knights Key Boulevard in Marathon, a raw bar where uninspected shellfish handling without a health policy carries elevated risk.
China Garden on SW 152nd Street in Miami and China Buffet on SW 67th Avenue in Miami were both cited for the same deficiency.
Las Tejas Restaurant on SW 26th Street in Miami and La Carreta MIA C-26-A at Miami International Airport's Concourse D were also cited. The airport location serves travelers moving through one of the busiest passenger hubs in the country.
Two facilities at the same Collins Avenue address in Miami, the Faena Hotel complex, were both cited. Los Fuegos and Living Room and Main Kitchen, both at 3201 Collins Avenue, each received high-severity citations for no employee health policy. Two distinct food operations at the same property, the same violation, the same week.
Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine on NW 53rd Street in Doral rounds out the nine.
What These Violations Mean
The three categories of violations documented this week represent the most direct human transmission routes in food safety. They are not equipment failures or temperature drift. They are people.
The "employee not reporting illness" citation, issued to Riviera Country Club of Coral Gables, Burger King 5, and China Lee Restaurant, is classified as a high-severity violation because it describes a worker who is already sick and is already handling food. Norovirus, the pathogen responsible for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads primarily through infected food handlers. A single symptomatic worker can contaminate dozens of meals before a single customer reports feeling sick.
The inadequate handwashing violation at El Meson del Paraiso is distinct from the infrastructure failure found at Anacapri and La Fresa Francesa. At El Meson, inspectors documented the behavior: employees handling food without washing their hands adequately. At Anacapri and La Fresa Francesa, inspectors found that the physical means to wash hands properly were not available. Both outcomes lead to the same contamination pathway, but the infrastructure failure means that even a motivated employee cannot comply.
The missing employee health policy, cited at nine facilities this week, is the foundational document of illness prevention in a commercial kitchen. Without it, workers have no written guidance on when to report symptoms, which symptoms require exclusion from food handling, and what the facility's protocol is when an employee becomes ill during a shift. Inspectors treat its absence as a high-severity finding because it removes the first line of defense before any food is ever touched.
The Longer Record
The data this week includes two Marathon locations that share a geography worth noting. Panda House Chinese Restaurant and Sunset Grille and Raw Bar both operate on the Overseas Highway corridor serving the Florida Keys, a tourist-heavy stretch where a single outbreak can affect visitors from dozens of states before symptoms appear. Both were cited for the absence of an employee health policy.
The two Faena Hotel properties on Collins Avenue present a different pattern. Los Fuegos and Living Room and Main Kitchen are separate food operations under what appears to be the same roof, and both failed the same personnel hygiene standard in the same inspection week. Whether those operations share management, staff, or training infrastructure is not reflected in the inspection records, but the simultaneous identical citation at a luxury hotel address is a fact the records document.
La Carreta MIA C-26-A at Miami International Airport operates in an environment where the volume of customers is high, the turnover is constant, and the window between food preparation and consumption is short. The absence of a written employee health policy at an airport concession serving hundreds of travelers daily is the kind of finding that does not resolve itself between inspection cycles.
Sunset Grille and Raw Bar, cited for no employee health policy, handles raw shellfish, a food category that carries elevated pathogen risk at baseline. Raw oysters and clams are consumed without a kill step, meaning any contamination introduced during handling reaches the customer directly. The health policy violation at a raw bar is not equivalent to the same violation at a facility serving cooked food.
