AVENTURA, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Sarahs Tent, a supermarket on Aventura's retail corridor, and found a can of spray paint sitting on a shelf directly above a kitchen prep station.
That was not the only alarming find. Raw packaged chicken was stored directly above platters of ready-to-eat food in the walk-in cooler. A spray bottle of chemical cleaner sat unlabeled on the floor under a hand sink in the meat cutting room. The person in charge could not answer basic questions about preventing foodborne illness.
By the time inspectors finished, they had documented 27 total violations, including two priority violations and six violations at the priority foundation level.
What Inspectors Found
The two priority violations were both corrected on the spot. Inspectors found raw packaged chicken stored directly above platters of ready-to-eat food in the walk-in cooler, a textbook cross-contamination scenario, and it was properly restacked before inspectors left. The spray paint was relocated away from the prep station during the visit.
The problems reached across every section of the store. In the processing area, employees were eating fries and drinking open beverages at prep tables while actively handling food. A manager intervened and instructed the employees to wash their hands and discard the food. Separate employee beverages were also sitting on prep tables in the meat cutting room and the salad area.
The seafood section drew its own citation. At the start of the inspection, the store could not produce a letter of guarantee confirming that raw fish served at the sushi case had been frozen to destroy parasites. That letter was provided before inspectors left, but the sushi packages themselves were missing required raw fish disclosure labeling at the point of sale. Six squeeze bottles of in-house packaged sweet sauce at the sushi case also lacked labeling and were voluntarily pulled from self-service sale.
The meat cutting room had no hand towels at the only hand sink, no handwashing sign posted, and a spray bottle of chemical cleaner sitting unlabeled on the floor beneath that same sink. A wall-mounted bug attraction device was installed directly above a walk-in cooler door in the backroom. The counter-mounted can opener in the processing area had black soil buildup on the base, blade, and handle.
The person in charge could not answer questions about foodborne illness prevention and could not produce written procedures for employee response to a vomit or diarrhea event. Neither gap was corrected on site.
What These Violations Mean
The raw chicken stored above ready-to-eat food is one of the most direct contamination risks inspectors can document in a grocery setting. Chicken juices dripping onto prepared platters below can transfer salmonella or campylobacter without any further cooking step to kill the bacteria. The food is going directly to a customer's table.
The spray paint stored above a prep station, and the unlabeled chemical spray bottle under the hand sink in the meat room, represent a different category of risk. Toxic materials near food preparation surfaces can contaminate food through aerosol or direct contact. Unlabeled containers mean employees cannot identify what they are handling, which raises the odds of accidental misuse.
The person in charge failing to answer basic foodborne illness questions is not a paperwork problem. It signals that the employee responsible for food safety decisions during that shift lacked the knowledge to make them. Inspectors also found no written cleanup procedures for a vomit or diarrhea event, which matters because norovirus spreads rapidly in retail environments when contamination is not contained immediately using a specific protocol.
The missing parasite destruction letter for raw fish is a traceability issue. Without documentation that fish served raw has been frozen to the required temperature and time, there is no verification that parasites have been killed before the product reaches a customer eating sushi.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was not the first time state inspectors visited Sarahs Tent. Records show two prior FDACS inspections at this location, both conducted on August 20, 2025, both focused inspections, and both resulting in zero violations.
Those were narrowly scoped visits. The April 2026 inspection was a full sanitation inspection, and the contrast is significant. Twenty-seven violations surfaced in a single visit at a store that had shown a clean record on the two prior occasions inspectors came through.
None of the 27 violations from April are marked as repeats of previously cited problems, which means inspectors had not flagged these specific issues in the prior focused visits. That also means the August 2025 focused inspections left no documented baseline against which to measure whether conditions had deteriorated.
The store met sanitation inspection requirements at the conclusion of the April visit, meaning inspectors did not issue an emergency closure order. Several violations were corrected on site, including the cross-contamination issue, the spray paint, the missing hand towels, and the unlabeled sushi bottles. But the person in charge's inability to answer foodborne illness questions and the absence of written vomit and diarrhea cleanup procedures were not resolved before inspectors left.