CLERMONT, FL. State inspectors walked into Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery and Grill on East Highway 50 on April 29 and found that the restaurant had no approved potable water supply, meaning the water running through the facility that day could not be confirmed safe for food preparation or handwashing.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented during the inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
Beyond the water supply, inspectors cited the restaurant for serving food sourced from an unapproved or unknown origin. That means the ingredients in question had no documented path through USDA or FDA inspection channels.
Inspectors also found that food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables and utensils that touch ingredients before they reach a plate, had not been properly cleaned or sanitized. Toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled somewhere in the facility, creating a direct contamination risk to food and surfaces nearby.
The restaurant had no written employee health policy, meaning there was no formal mechanism to keep sick workers out of food preparation. Inspectors additionally cited improper handwashing technique, a finding that compounds the health policy problem: even when employees attempted to wash their hands, the technique was insufficient to remove pathogens.
Required procedures for specialized food processes, which can include smoking, curing or reduced-oxygen packaging, were not being followed. There was no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. The two intermediate violations covered improper sewage and wastewater disposal, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
The potable water violation is among the most fundamental failures a food service establishment can accumulate. Water that cannot be confirmed safe can carry E. coli, Cryptosporidium, Giardia and Legionella, pathogens that cause severe gastrointestinal illness and, in some cases, life-threatening infection. Every food item rinsed, every surface wiped down and every employee who washed their hands that day did so with water of unverified safety.
The food-from-unapproved-sources citation compounds that risk in a specific way. When a customer gets sick, investigators trace the illness back through the supply chain. Food from an unknown or unapproved source has no chain of custody, no lot number, no recall mechanism. If someone who ate at Golden Krust that day becomes ill, there may be no way to identify what they ate or where it came from.
The improperly stored chemicals violation is not a paperwork issue. Cleaning agents and sanitizers stored near food or mislabeled can cause acute chemical poisoning, either through direct contamination or through an employee mistaking one substance for another during prep. Combined with the improper sewage disposal finding, the picture is of a facility where multiple contamination pathways were active simultaneously on the same day.
The absence of an employee health policy and the citation for improper handwashing technique are linked failures. Norovirus, one of the most contagious foodborne illnesses in existence, spreads primarily through infected food handlers who either do not know they should stay home or who do not wash their hands effectively. Neither safeguard was reliably in place on April 29.
The Longer Record
The April 29 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Golden Krust on East Highway 50 has been inspected 22 times, accumulating 231 total violations across its history, with zero emergency closures.
The pattern at this location is consistent and long-running. In January 2023, inspectors documented 10 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate ones. Seven months later, in July 2023, there were 8 high-severity violations and 1 intermediate, a count nearly identical to what was found this April. The August 2024 inspection produced 9 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate ones.
The facility has never been emergency-closed despite repeatedly reaching high-severity violation counts in the range of 8 to 10. The two inspections conducted on consecutive days in August 2022, August 25 and August 26, produced 10 high-severity violations on the first day and 4 on the second, suggesting some corrections were made quickly. But the pattern did not hold across subsequent inspections.
The most recent inspection before this one, conducted in September 2025, found 3 high-severity violations and 6 intermediate ones, a comparatively lower count. The April 2026 inspection reversed that trend sharply, returning to 8 high-severity violations, the same total as July 2023.
Still Open
State inspectors documented all ten violations on April 29, including the absence of a verified safe water supply and the presence of food from an unknown source. They filed the report.
Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery and Grill on East Highway 50 in Clermont remained open.