HIALEAH, FL. A state inspector visiting La Paloma Bakery and Restaurant on West 46th Street on August 13 found food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, a violation that means live pathogens can survive on the plate and reach the customer.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited the restaurant for having no written employee health policy, meaning nothing formally requires a sick worker to stay away from food preparation. That gap sits alongside a separate citation for improper handwashing technique, which means employees were washing their hands but doing it wrong, leaving pathogens on their skin.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned. And wiping cloths were used improperly, a violation that turns a cleaning tool into a contamination vehicle as it moves from surface to surface.
The inspector further cited inadequate shell stock identification and records. The bakery sells or serves shellfish, and without proper tags and records, there is no way to trace an oyster or clam back to its harvest source if a customer gets sick.
The tenth violation was inadequate cooling and cold holding equipment, meaning the physical capacity to keep food at safe temperatures was itself deficient.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooking violation is the most direct path to a sick customer. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. A piece of chicken pulled from heat too early carries live bacteria to the table. This is not a documentation failure or a paperwork gap. It is the actual condition that causes foodborne illness outbreaks.
The absence of an employee health policy compounds that risk. Without a written policy, there is no formal mechanism to keep a worker who has Norovirus symptoms away from food. Norovirus causes an estimated 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and a single sick food handler can transmit it to dozens of customers through direct food contact.
The time-as-public-health-control violation adds another layer. When a kitchen uses time instead of temperature to manage food safety, the system requires strict tracking of how long food stays in the danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit. If that tracking is not done properly, food that has been sitting in the danger zone for hours can be served as if it were safe.
The shell stock recordkeeping failure is a separate but serious problem. Shellfish are consumed raw or lightly cooked, and they are a well-documented vector for Vibrio and hepatitis A. Without harvest records, inspectors and health officials cannot identify the source of contamination if customers report illness after eating shellfish at this location.
The Longer Record
August 13 was not a bad day at an otherwise clean restaurant. State records show La Paloma Bakery has been inspected seven times total, and the facility has accumulated 59 violations across those visits.
The pattern is consistent. On March 9 of this year, inspectors found five high-severity violations and one intermediate. On October 23, 2025, the visit turned up three high-severity violations. The January 2025 inspection produced three high-severity violations and two intermediate ones.
The most direct comparison to this month's inspection is August 14, 2024, exactly one year and one day earlier. That visit also produced six high-severity violations and four intermediate violations, the same total counts as August 13, 2026.
The facility has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history, despite logging high-severity violations in every recorded inspection except one, a single visit in October 2024 that produced zero high-severity citations.
Open for Business
Six high-severity violations, including undercooked food and no mechanism to keep sick employees out of the kitchen, did not result in a closure order on August 13.
The restaurant at 1255 West 46th Street, Unit 20, remained open after the inspection.
