BROADWAY WEST PALM BEACH, FL. Back in March 2026, a state inspector walking through the backroom of HRJ 5011 Food Corp on Broadway found liquid chemicals, including bleach and detergent, stored directly above ready-to-drink beverages. It was not the first time.
That finding was flagged as a repeat violation, meaning inspectors had documented the same chemical storage problem at a prior visit and the store had not maintained the fix. The inspector noted the separation was corrected during the visit, but the fact that it required correction again placed it among the more consequential findings of the day.
The March 26 inspection produced 10 total violations, four of them classified as priority, meaning they carry direct food safety risk to customers. None of the violations were corrected on site in the sense that the inspection was cleared without further action, but several individual items were addressed by staff during the visit itself.
What Inspectors Found
The temperature findings were extensive. In the food service area, the inspector documented various hot foods on the hot table, including fried cheese, fried chicken, fish, pork, beef in soup, white rice, and mashed potatoes, all cooked within two hours but holding at internal temperatures between 112 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit. State standards require hot held foods to stay at or above 135 degrees. The inspector noted all out-of-temperature items were reheated and verified during the visit.
Cold holding was also a problem. Milk stocked two hours earlier in a reach-in cooler registered an internal temperature of 46 degrees. Salsa sauce pulled out for service three hours prior and stored under the point of sale measured 52 degrees. Both were moved to cooling equipment during the visit.
In the meat department, an employee was observed washing utensils and then handling food while wearing the same pair of gloves. The inspector noted employees washed their hands and put on clean gloves after the observation.
The kitchen's hand wash sink was blocked by a trash bin. The inspector noted the bin was moved during the visit to restore access. The three-compartment sink had no air gap at the drain, a plumbing condition that creates the potential for contaminated water to back-siphon into the sink.
The store also lacked written procedures for responding to vomiting or diarrhea events, a foundational food safety requirement.
What These Violations Mean
The chemical storage violation is the most direct hazard to anyone who bought a beverage from that backroom stock. Bleach and detergent stored above ready-to-drink beverages create a contamination risk if a container leaks or spills. The reason this violation carries a priority classification is traceability: if a customer became ill from a contaminated product, there would be no easy way to connect that illness to the storage condition after the fact. The fact that inspectors had flagged this same problem before makes it more significant, not less.
The hot holding temperatures documented at the food service counter represent a bacterial growth window. The range of 112 to 130 degrees sits inside what food safety regulators call the danger zone, where pathogens including Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus multiply most rapidly. Fried chicken and pork held at those temperatures for even a short period can accumulate bacterial loads that cause illness. The same principle applies to the milk at 46 degrees and the salsa at 52 degrees.
The glove violation in the meat department matters because single-use gloves are only a barrier when used as one. An employee who washes utensils and then handles raw or ready-to-eat food with the same gloves transfers whatever contamination the utensil washing introduced directly onto the food.
A blocked hand wash sink may appear minor compared to temperature violations, but it functions as a root cause. When employees cannot easily access a sink, hand washing frequency drops. That creates a pathway for cross-contamination across every other task performed in the kitchen.
The Longer Record
The repeat classification on the chemical storage violation is the most important piece of context in this inspection record. It means the store was cited for the same problem, bleach and detergent stored over consumable beverages, on at least one prior visit. The store corrected it at the time, or the inspector moved on, and then the condition reappeared.
Repeat violations in grocery stores are significant because they indicate a correction was made during an inspection but not embedded into daily practice. A one-time fix during a visit does not change the underlying storage habits of staff or the physical layout that allowed the condition to develop.
The inspection on March 26 was classified as meeting sanitation inspection requirements, meaning the store was not ordered to close and was not issued a stop sale order on any product. That outcome reflects the fact that most individual violations were addressed during the visit itself.
What the record does not resolve is whether the hot table temperatures, the cold holding failures, and the blocked hand wash sink were conditions that existed only on the day of the visit or whether they reflect routine operating conditions at HRJ 5011 Food Corp. The repeat chemical violation suggests at least one documented problem had existed before.