HOMESTEAD, FL. Inspectors who visited MayaMex Restaurant on N Krome Avenue on July 14 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means there is no paper trail if a customer gets sick and no guarantee the food passed any federal safety inspection before it reached the kitchen.
That was one of 13 high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The full list of high-severity violations reads like a checklist of the conditions most likely to send someone to a hospital. Inspectors cited parasite destruction procedures not being followed, which applies to fish and other proteins that must be frozen to specific temperatures to kill organisms like Anisakis before being served. They cited food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, a direct pathway for Salmonella survival in poultry.
Two separate violations addressed toxic chemicals: one for improper storage or labeling, one for improper identification, storage, or use of toxic substances. Both appeared in the same inspection.
The illness-related violations compounded each other. Inspectors found no written employee health policy, documented that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, and noted that the person in charge was either not present or not performing duties. Those three violations together describe a kitchen with no formal system for keeping sick workers away from food and no manager actively enforcing one.
Inspectors also cited inadequate shell stock identification records, which tracks oysters, clams, and mussels back to their harvest beds. Without those records, there is no way to identify the source of a shellfish illness after the fact. Time as a public health control was not properly used, and no consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods, leaving customers with no notice that certain items carry elevated risk.
Among the five intermediate violations was improper sewage or waste water disposal, a finding that indicates a risk of fecal contamination spreading through the facility.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is the one that forecloses the most options after something goes wrong. When food enters a restaurant from an unapproved or unknown supplier, it has bypassed the USDA and FDA inspection systems designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before the food reaches a kitchen. If a customer becomes ill, investigators have no supply chain to trace.
The parasite destruction failure carries its own specific risk. Certain fish served raw or undercooked must be commercially frozen to kill parasites including Anisakis, a roundworm capable of burrowing into the stomach lining. If the freezing step is skipped or improperly documented, the parasite can survive to the plate.
The illness reporting failures are acutely dangerous in a different way. Norovirus is the most common cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, and it spreads through direct contact, meaning a sick food handler who continues working can infect dozens of customers in a single shift. Without a written health policy and without a manager enforcing it, there is no formal checkpoint between a symptomatic employee and the food they prepare.
Two chemical violations in the same inspection, covering both storage and identification, describe a kitchen where cleaning agents or pesticides are not reliably separated from food preparation areas. Chemical contamination from mislabeled or improperly stored substances can cause acute poisoning with no warning.
The Longer Record
MayaMex Inspection History: High-Severity Violations
July's inspection was not an aberration. It was the worst single visit in a documented pattern that stretches back years. State records show 28 inspections on file for MayaMex, with 283 total violations accumulated across that history.
The restaurant logged 11 high-severity violations in December 2024, 8 in both September 2025 and March 2024, and 7 in January 2026. There has not been a single inspection in the most recent three years that produced fewer than 5 high-severity violations, with the exception of April 2025, which logged 3.
The facility has never been emergency-closed, despite accumulating high-severity violations at nearly every inspection for years. July's count of 13 is the highest on record in the data provided.
MayaMex Restaurant on N Krome Avenue was open for business the day inspectors documented 13 high-severity violations inside it.
