NORTH PORT, FL. Food workers at Puerto Rican Spice on Tamiami Trail South had no written policy requiring them to report symptoms of illness when a state inspector arrived on August 26, and no one was enforcing the rules who should have been. The restaurant walked away with six high-severity violations that day. Inspectors did not close it.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector documented three violations that, together, describe a kitchen where sick employees could have been preparing food with no mechanism to stop them. There was no written employee health policy. Employees were not reporting illness symptoms. And no person in charge was present to enforce either requirement.
Those three violations form a chain. Without a health policy, workers have no formal guidance on when to stay home. Without reporting, a symptomatic worker stays on the line. Without a manager actively overseeing the floor, neither failure gets caught.
The inspector also found that food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep surfaces and equipment that touch food directly are among the most reliable transfer routes for bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli. A surface that looks clean and isn't can contaminate every dish prepared on it.
Handwashing technique was also cited as a high-severity violation. Inspectors noted employees were not washing correctly, meaning pathogens remained on hands even when a wash attempt was made.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods on its menu. Customers with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, the elderly and young children rely on those disclosures to make informed choices about what they order.
Two intermediate violations rounded out the inspection: inadequate cooling and cold-holding equipment, and improper use of wiping cloths. Wiping cloths used incorrectly can spread contamination across every surface they touch rather than removing it.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and no illness reporting is not a paperwork problem. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently through food handled by a symptomatic worker. A single infected employee can contaminate food that reaches dozens of customers before anyone connects the cases to a source. The absence of a written policy at Puerto Rican Spice means there was no documented standard for when a sick employee should be excluded from food handling.
The person-in-charge violation compounds every other finding. CDC research shows that food establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at roughly three times the rate of those with engaged oversight. When no one is accountable for enforcing hand hygiene, equipment sanitation or illness reporting, all three tend to fail at once. That is what the August 26 inspection found.
The inadequate cooling equipment violation carries its own specific risk. Equipment that cannot maintain proper cold-holding temperatures allows food to drift into the range between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, where bacterial growth accelerates rapidly. A refrigeration unit that is struggling on a hot August day in Southwest Florida is not a minor inconvenience.
The Longer Record
August 26 was not the first time inspectors found serious problems at Puerto Rican Spice. State records show the restaurant has been inspected six times since May 2024, and five of those six visits produced high-severity violations.
The one clean inspection came in May 2024, when the facility recorded zero high or intermediate violations. Every inspection since has produced at least two high-severity citations. The January 2025 visit found four high-severity violations and one intermediate. April 2026 produced three high-severity violations. August 2026 brought the highest single-inspection total in the facility's record: six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones.
The pattern is not one of a restaurant that stumbled once. Across six inspections, the facility has accumulated 26 total violations. The severity has been trending upward, not down.
No emergency closure has ever been ordered at Puerto Rican Spice. The restaurant has never been shut down despite a record that now includes, across multiple visits, documented failures in management oversight, employee illness reporting and food contact surface sanitation.
Still Open
After the August 26 inspection, the restaurant at 12765 Tamiami Trail South remained open to the public. Six high-severity violations, including the absence of any written policy to keep sick food workers off the line, were not enough to trigger a closure order.
The inspection record is public. The restaurant is still serving customers.
