, FL. Inspectors visiting Jiffy Food #1569 this past September found open bags of fully cooked Hunt Brothers chicken wings sitting in a deli cooler with no date mark, a violation the store had already been cited for before.
The September 11 inspection by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services turned up 11 total violations, including one priority violation and one repeat. None were corrected before the inspection began.
What Inspectors Found
The open bags in question were Hunt Brothers Southern Style and Original fully cooked wings, held cold for more than 24 hours. According to the inspection record, "date of opening was verified by personnel," meaning staff knew how long the product had been open but had not marked it. The bags were date-marked before the inspector left.
The store's deli probe thermometer, used to check food temperatures, had "old food residue and buildup" on it when the inspector examined it. A thermometer carrying residue from previous uses can transfer contamination directly to whatever food it touches next. It was cleaned and sanitized during the inspection.
Two separate hand-wash stations in the deli had no soap or no means of drying hands. The station next to the ware-washing sink had neither soap nor paper towels. The hand sink on the food service counter had no paper towels. Both were restocked before the inspector left, but the fact that two stations were simultaneously unequipped points to a maintenance gap, not a one-time oversight.
Equipment Holding Together With Workarounds
The physical condition of the deli's chest freezers drew a specific note from the inspector. Both the large and small chest freezer lids are in disrepair, with "bottom and interior paneling has become detached." The gaskets no longer make a consistent contact seal on their own. According to the inspection record, staff are currently placing weighted containers on the lids to force them shut.
That is not a repair. That is a workaround, and it is one the store appears to have accepted as normal.
The walk-in cooler's wall thermometer in the back room read 60 degrees Fahrenheit during the inspection. An inspector using a calibrated probe thermometer measured the actual ambient air temperature at 37 degrees. A thermometer that reads 23 degrees above actual temperature is not a functioning safety tool.
Damaged and missing floor tiles were noted across the deli, back room, and retail area. Ceiling damage was observed near the soda syrup rack in the deli. Missing ceiling tiles were found in the dry storage room, the same room holding single-use articles. Heavy dust had built up on the air conditioning return vents in the ceiling, and the floor drain at the ware-washing sink had "black residue buildup and grime."
Clean utensils stored in containers in the deli area were not inverted, leaving the business ends of the utensils facing upward and exposed. The restroom doors in the back room lack self-closing mechanisms. The store had no sink stoppers available during the inspection, a problem that affects the ability to properly sanitize food equipment. The manager left during the inspection and purchased stoppers, which were provided before the inspector finished.
What These Violations Mean
The repeat date-marking failure is not a paperwork problem. Ready-to-eat foods held in a cooler for more than 24 hours must be date-marked because that mark is the only way staff, and inspectors, can verify the food has not been held past safe limits. Without it, there is no way to know whether those wings had been sitting for two days or five. For anyone buying deli items at Jiffy Food #1569, that uncertainty is the risk.
The contaminated probe thermometer is a direct contact hazard. When a thermometer with old food residue is inserted into a fresh food item to check temperature, whatever was on the thermometer transfers into that food. In a deli environment where the same thermometer checks multiple items, the contamination risk compounds with each use.
The dual hand-wash station failures matter because hand-washing is the most basic barrier between staff and the food they handle. When two stations are simultaneously missing soap or drying materials, the practical effect is that employees preparing or handling food have no convenient means to wash their hands properly. That is not a minor lapse in a food service environment.
The Longer Record
The inspection data does not include a prior inspection count for this facility, so it is not possible to place this visit in a longer numerical context. What the record does show is that the date-marking violation is explicitly flagged as a repeat, meaning inspectors documented the same failure at Jiffy Food #1569 on at least one prior visit.
A repeat violation is significant because it means the correction made during the previous inspection did not hold. The wings were date-marked before the inspector left this time, too. Whether that correction persists is a question the next inspection will answer.
Several of the physical facility violations, the broken freezer lids, the damaged floor and ceiling tiles, the inaccurate wall thermometer, reflect conditions that do not develop overnight. They suggest deferred maintenance rather than a single bad day. Those violations were not corrected on site and remain unresolved as of the September 11 inspection.
