WINTER PARK, FL. Inspectors visiting Mynt Indian Cuisine at 535 W. New England Ave. on July 29 found toxic chemicals stored improperly near food, no written policy to keep sick workers out of the kitchen, and employees failing to wash their hands correctly, or in some cases at all. The restaurant drew six high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical storage violation stands out. State records classify improper storage of toxic substances near food as a high-severity violation because contaminated food can cause acute poisoning, and mislabeled chemicals can be mistaken for food-safe products by kitchen workers. The inspector documented the problem on July 29 and it remained unresolved when the visit concluded.
Two separate handwashing violations were also cited. The first noted that food employees failed to wash their hands adequately. The second documented that when handwashing did occur, the technique was wrong. Both are listed as high severity.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, a violation that creates a direct pathway for bacteria to transfer from preparation equipment to food. The inspector also noted the restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items, leaving diners with no information about elevated risk.
The three intermediate violations, covering sewage disposal, ventilation, and toilet facilities, round out a picture of infrastructure that fell short on multiple fronts during the same visit.
What These Violations Mean
The handwashing findings carry particular weight. Improper handwashing is the single most significant documented factor in the spread of foodborne illness. When employees skip it entirely, pathogens from raw meat, waste, and other contaminated surfaces transfer directly to food. When employees wash incorrectly, pathogens survive even the attempt. At Mynt, inspectors cited both failures on the same day.
The absence of an employee health policy compounds that risk. Without a written policy requiring sick workers to stay home, there is no formal mechanism to keep an employee with Norovirus or Salmonella out of a kitchen. Norovirus alone accounts for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and direct transmission through food handling is a primary route.
Improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch food throughout a shift, are a primary vehicle for bacterial transfer once handwashing failures have already introduced contamination. The combination of all three violations at Mynt on July 29 describes a kitchen where multiple contamination pathways were open simultaneously.
The improper sewage disposal violation adds a separate layer of concern. Raw sewage contains E. coli, Hepatitis A, and other pathogens. An improperly maintained disposal system can spread fecal contamination across surfaces and into the water supply used for food preparation.
The Longer Record
The July 29 inspection is not an anomaly. State records show Mynt Indian Cuisine has been inspected 54 times and has accumulated 595 total violations since opening. The restaurant has been emergency-closed three times.
The first two closures, in April and July 2022, were both for rodent activity. The third, in June 2024, was for roach activity. After each closure, the restaurant passed a follow-up inspection and reopened within two days.
The inspection record from the past year shows high-severity violations in every single visit. The April 21, 2025, inspection produced 11 high-severity violations and five intermediate. The January 28, 2025, inspection produced seven high-severity violations. A follow-up inspection on August 6, 2026, eight days after the July 29 visit covered here, produced four more high-severity violations and one intermediate, indicating that problems documented in late July had not been fully resolved a week later.
The pattern across these inspections is not a facility occasionally falling short. It is a facility that has drawn high-severity violations in nine consecutive documented inspections spanning more than a year, including the three that ended in emergency closures in 2022 and 2024.
Open for Business
Florida's emergency closure standard requires inspectors to find an imminent hazard to public health, a threshold the state did not reach on July 29 despite six high-severity violations at Mynt. The distinction matters to regulators. It may matter differently to a customer who ate there that day and did not know that toxic chemicals were stored improperly near food, that the employees handling their meal had been cited for not washing their hands correctly, and that the kitchen's food contact surfaces had not been properly sanitized.
Mynt Indian Cuisine remained open after the July 29 inspection.
