HOMESTEAD, FL. Employees at a Homestead Mexican restaurant were observed failing to wash their hands adequately before handling food, and a separate violation documented that when they did attempt to wash, the technique was wrong, leaving pathogens on their hands either way.
State inspectors cited Los Tres Carnales Mexican Grill at 312 NE 8th Street for six high-severity violations and two intermediate violations during an August 10 inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The two handwashing violations together tell a specific story. Inspectors documented that employees were not washing their hands adequately, and separately that when handwashing attempts were made, the technique itself was wrong. That combination means neither step of the basic contamination barrier was functioning.
Inspectors also found that the restaurant's shellfish, which can include oysters, clams, or mussels served raw or lightly cooked, lacked proper shell stock identification and records. Without that documentation, there is no way to trace where the shellfish came from if a customer becomes ill.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and equipment that touches ingredients directly, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Multi-use utensils had not been properly cleaned, a condition that allows bacterial biofilm to develop on surfaces that then transfer contamination to every dish prepared afterward.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for failing to follow required procedures for specialized processes. Those processes, which can include smoking, curing, fermenting, or reduced-oxygen packaging, require precise controls because they create conditions where dangerous bacteria can multiply rapidly if steps are missed.
The intermediate sewage violation added a separate layer of concern. Improper wastewater disposal creates the possibility of fecal contamination spreading through a facility, a risk that compounds every other sanitation failure documented in the same visit.
What These Violations Mean
The two handwashing violations are not redundant citations for the same problem. The first documents that employees skipped handwashing when it was required. The second documents that even when they washed, they did it wrong. Handwashing is the primary barrier between what employees touch and what ends up in a customer's food. When both violations appear in the same inspection, the barrier was not functioning at any point during the visit.
The shellfish traceability violation carries a different kind of risk. Shellfish harvested from contaminated waters can carry norovirus, Vibrio bacteria, or hepatitis A, and they are frequently consumed raw. The identification tags and records that restaurants are required to keep exist for one reason: if someone gets sick, investigators need to know exactly where those shellfish came from and what other batches came from the same source. Without those records, an outbreak investigation starts from nothing.
Improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals near food preparation areas is a category of violation that can cause acute harm, not the slower harm of bacterial illness. A mislabeled chemical or a container stored near food ingredients creates a direct pathway to chemical poisoning, which can be immediate and severe.
The food contact surface and utensil violations compound everything else. When cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils are not properly sanitized, every ingredient that touches them picks up whatever was there before. Combined with employees not washing their hands correctly, the cross-contamination pathways at Los Tres Carnales on August 10 were not isolated. They were layered.
The Longer Record
The August 10 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Los Tres Carnales has accumulated 260 violations across 33 inspections on record, and it has never been emergency-closed.
The most recent prior inspections show a consistent pattern of high-severity violations. Inspectors found five high-severity violations in January 2026, six high-severity violations in October 2025, five high-severity violations in February 2025, and four high-severity violations in January 2024. The only inspection in recent memory that produced no high-severity violations was a single visit in February 2025, sandwiched between two inspections that month that together produced five high-severity citations.
The facility did pass cleanly on February 18, 2025, with zero high or intermediate violations. The very next inspection, on February 17 of the same year, recorded five high-severity violations. That sequence suggests the clean inspection was the exception, not the trend.
Six high-severity violations in a single visit matches the restaurant's October 2025 inspection exactly. The August 2026 inspection is not the worst the facility has seen in terms of count. It is consistent with what inspectors have been finding there for years.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented six high-severity violations at Los Tres Carnales on August 10, including employees failing to wash their hands properly, untracked shellfish with no traceability records if a customer becomes ill, toxic chemicals improperly stored, unsanitized food contact surfaces, and improper sewage disposal.
The restaurant was not closed.
It has never been emergency-closed in 33 inspections and 260 total violations on record.
