BOCA RATON, FL. Back in January 2026, a state inspector visiting the Sambou Acai mobile vendor unit in Boca Raton found that the person in charge could not explain when sick employees are required to stay away from food, and had no verifiable system in place to make sure workers ever received that information.
That gap sat at the center of a six-violation inspection conducted January 22 by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The unit passed, meeting sanitation inspection requirements, but none of the six violations were corrected on site.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector's notes on illness reporting were direct: the person in charge "was unable to ensure that food employees were informed in a verifiable manner to report their illness and or symptoms related to diseases that are transmissible through food." A second related violation followed immediately, noting the person in charge "was unable to relate conditions of restriction and exclusion."
Those two findings together describe a mobile food operation where the person running it, on the day of inspection, could not articulate the rules that keep sick workers away from the food being sold to customers.
The hand wash sink on the mobile vehicle had no soap. The inspector noted that plainly: "No hand wash soap provided at hand wash sink."
No chemical sanitizer test kits were available on the vehicle either. Inspectors use those kits to confirm that sanitizing solutions are mixed at the correct concentration. Without them, there is no way to verify on the spot that surfaces contacting food are being sanitized effectively.
The establishment also had no written procedures for employees to follow in the event of an accidental vomiting or diarrheal incident. The inspector's note: "Food establishment does not have any written procedures to address clean up procedures for accidental vomiting and diarrheal incidents."
The sixth and least severe violation involved the chest freezer. Its thermometer sensor was not positioned to measure air temperature in the storage zone, meaning the unit had no reliable way to confirm frozen product was being held at a safe temperature.
What These Violations Mean
The two illness-reporting violations are not paperwork problems. When a person in charge cannot confirm that employees know to report symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, or sore throat with lesions, there is no functional barrier between a sick worker and the food being prepared and served. Mobile vendors operate in close quarters, often with one or two people handling all food contact from prep through service. A single ill employee with no instruction to stay home is a direct transmission route to every customer served that day.
The absence of a written vomit and diarrhea cleanup plan compounds that risk. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, spreads rapidly through contaminated surfaces. Written cleanup procedures exist specifically to prevent aerosolization and cross-contamination during an incident. Sambou Acai had none documented at the time of inspection.
No hand soap at the only hand wash sink on the vehicle means hand washing, even when attempted, cannot be completed properly. That applies to every food handling task performed between a customer order and the moment product changes hands.
The missing sanitizer test kits matter because concentration is everything. A sanitizing solution that is too weak does not kill pathogens. One that is too strong can itself become a chemical hazard on food-contact surfaces. Without test kits, there is no way to verify which condition exists on any given day.
The Longer Record
The January 22 inspection is the record available for this facility. The data does not indicate prior inspections on file for this mobile unit, which means this inspection may represent one of the earliest documented visits to Sambou Acai under FDACS oversight.
That context cuts both ways. A new operation without a long history of violations is not automatically a troubled one. But a new or early-stage mobile vendor that already lacks the foundational elements, a soap supply, a thermometer, a written illness policy, test kits, raises questions about how those gaps developed before the first recorded inspection.
None of the six violations cited in January were marked as repeat findings, and none were corrected on site during the inspection. The unit passed overall, meeting the threshold to continue operating.
Unresolved at Inspection's Close
Sambou Acai left the January 22 inspection with all six violations still on the books. The chest freezer had no properly positioned thermometer to confirm product temperature. The hand wash sink still had no soap.
Whether those conditions were addressed after the inspector left is not reflected in the available record.