DELRAY BEACH, FL. A state inspector walked into La Boom Cafe at 263 NE 2 Ave on June 9 and documented food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, toxic substances improperly stored, and employees failing to report illness symptoms, among six total high-severity violations. The restaurant was not closed.
The June inspection produced six high-severity citations and one intermediate violation, the worst single-visit tally in the cafe's documented inspection history.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at La Boom Cafe that day. State code requires poultry to reach 165°F internally, a threshold that kills Salmonella. Food served below that temperature can carry live pathogens to the table.
Toxic substances improperly stored in a food service environment create a separate and immediate risk. Chemicals stored near or above food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, with no cooking step to neutralize the exposure.
The inspector also found that employees were not reporting illness symptoms, and that the cafe had no adequate written employee health policy. Those two violations were cited together on the same visit, and together they describe a kitchen with no formal mechanism to keep sick workers away from food.
Improper handwashing technique rounded out the picture. The inspector documented not just an absence of handwashing, but technique so flawed that pathogens remain on hands even after an attempt is made. Combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, the conditions on June 9 described multiple overlapping routes for contamination.
What These Violations Mean
Undercooking is one of the most direct causes of foodborne illness, and it is also one of the most preventable. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165°F. A customer eating undercooked chicken has no way to know the food is unsafe, and symptoms including fever, cramps, and severe diarrhea can appear 12 to 72 hours later, well after any connection to a specific meal is forgotten.
The employee illness violations at La Boom Cafe on June 9 compound that risk. Food workers are the primary transmission route for Norovirus, which spreads through contaminated hands and surfaces and can sicken dozens of people from a single infected employee. A written health policy is the basic mechanism that keeps symptomatic workers out of the kitchen. Without one, and without workers trained to report symptoms, there is no functional barrier between a sick employee and the food being served.
Improper handwashing technique is a subtler but equally serious failure. Studies show that most people believe they wash their hands correctly but do not. In a commercial kitchen, where hands contact raw proteins, cleaning chemicals, and ready-to-eat food in rapid succession, technique failures multiply the contamination risk across every dish prepared during a shift.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, combined with multi-use utensils carrying bacterial biofilm, mean that contamination introduced at any point in the preparation process can persist and transfer to the next item placed on that surface or handled with those utensils.
The Longer Record
The June 9 inspection was not La Boom Cafe's first encounter with high-severity citations. State records show 21 inspections on file and 78 total violations across the facility's history, with high-severity findings appearing in every year for which inspection data is available going back to 2021.
The most recent prior inspection, conducted March 4, 2026, produced two high-severity violations. The inspection before that, in February 2024, produced five high-severity violations and one intermediate. In December 2021, the cafe logged three high-severity violations, and in February 2021, three more.
The pattern across those inspections is one of recurring high-severity findings without escalation to emergency closure. La Boom Cafe has never been emergency-closed in its documented inspection history, despite accumulating high-severity violations across at least eight separate inspection visits.
June 9, 2026, produced the highest single-visit high-severity count in that record: six.
Still Open
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations, including undercooked food, improperly stored toxic substances, and no mechanism to keep sick employees out of the kitchen, did not meet that threshold on June 9 at La Boom Cafe.
The restaurant at 263 NE 2 Ave remained open after the inspection concluded.