CUTLER BAY, FL. Food workers at MDIST on S Dixie Highway were not reporting symptoms of illness to management, inspectors found on August 6, 2026, and the restaurant had no written policy requiring them to do so. State inspectors documented seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations that day. The facility was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The illness reporting violations were not isolated. Inspectors cited both the absence of a written employee health policy and the active failure of employees to report symptoms, two separate high-severity findings that together describe a workplace with no system for keeping sick workers away from food.
The handwashing problems ran just as deep. Inspectors cited employees for inadequate handwashing and, separately, for using improper technique. That distinction matters: one violation covers whether workers are washing their hands at all, the other covers whether the washing they do is actually effective.
Two additional high-severity citations pointed to food safety failures at the preparation and cooking stages. Parasite destruction procedures were not followed, a violation typically triggered when fish, pork, or wild game is served without the required freezing or cooking protocols meant to kill organisms like Anisakis and Trichinella. Food was also found not cooked to required minimum temperatures, meaning pathogens that heat is supposed to destroy were not destroyed.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. On top of that, multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned and sanitizing solution concentration was inadequate or improperly applied. The surfaces and tools that touch food, in other words, were not reliably safe.
What These Violations Mean
The pairing of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is the combination that public health officials point to when tracing the origin of multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, which causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads most efficiently through food handled by infected workers who do not know they are required to stay home or who work in environments where no one has told them they must report symptoms. Both conditions were present at MDIST on August 6.
The two handwashing violations compound that risk directly. Improper technique, specifically washing for less than the required time or skipping steps, leaves live pathogens on hands that then transfer to food, utensils, and surfaces. When that failure occurs alongside improperly sanitized food contact surfaces and unclean multi-use utensils, the contamination pathways multiply.
The parasite destruction violation carries a different but serious risk. Parasites in fish and pork are not visible to customers and are not detectable by smell or appearance. They are eliminated only through verified cooking temperatures or through documented freezing protocols. When those procedures are skipped, parasites including tapeworm larvae and Anisakis roundworms can survive into the finished dish.
Undercooked food, the seventh high-severity violation, is among the most direct routes to Salmonella illness from poultry and E. coli illness from ground beef. The required internal temperatures for these proteins exist specifically because lower temperatures allow those bacteria to survive. A customer has no way to know at the table whether those temperatures were reached.
The Longer Record
August 6 was not the first time inspectors found serious problems at MDIST. State records show eight inspections on file for the facility, with 48 total violations across that history and no prior emergency closures.
The pattern is consistent and recent. In February 2026, six months before the August inspection, inspectors cited nine high-severity violations in a single visit, the highest single-inspection count in the facility's record. In October 2025, four high-severity violations were documented. In March 2025, three high-severity and two intermediate violations were found. In December 2024, four high-severity and one intermediate violation.
The one clean inspection in the record came in March 2024, when inspectors found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That visit was followed six days later by a return inspection that found one high-severity violation. By December 2024, the count was back to four high-severity citations.
MDIST Inspection History: High-Severity Violations by Visit
Every inspection since that March 2024 clean visit has produced high-severity violations. The categories have shifted somewhat across visits, but illness-related and sanitation-related citations have appeared repeatedly.
Open for Business
Seven high-severity violations, including sick workers with no policy requiring them to report symptoms, undercooked food, and no parasite destruction procedures, were documented at MDIST on August 6, 2026. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation did not issue an emergency closure order. The restaurant served customers that day.
