WEST PALM BEACH, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into Smoothie Me Please, a convenience and packaged food store on the retail food circuit in West Palm Beach, and found the employee handwashing sink in the backroom stocked with nothing, no soap, no paper towels, no hand-drying device of any kind.
That was the April 3 visit. It was not the first time inspectors had flagged problems at this location.
What Inspectors Found
The April 3 inspection logged five violations in total. The most serious, classified as a priority-foundation finding, was the condition of the backroom handwashing sink: inspectors recorded that there was "no soap/paper towels or hand drying device at handwash sink in employee toilet room."
That sink is the facility's designated employee handwashing station. Without soap or paper towels, it functions as decoration.
The sign violation was marked repeat. Inspectors noted "no sign advising employees to wash hands at handwash sink in employee toilet room," and the bracket notation in the record confirms this same deficiency was cited during a prior visit. The facility had not corrected it between inspections.
Three additional violations rounded out the report. The female employee toilet room lacked a covered receptacle for sanitary waste. The toilet room itself did not have a self-closing door, a basic enclosure requirement for food establishment restrooms. And in the kitchen, a faucet on the three-compartment sink was leaking.
None of the five violations were corrected on site during the April 3 inspection.
A Difficult Start
The April 3 visit was not this location's introduction to state inspectors. Records show that just eight days earlier, on March 26, 2026, FDACS inspectors had conducted a preoperational inspection of the facility and the outcome was a formal finding that the location "Did not Meet Preoperational Inspection Requirements." That visit generated eight violations on its own.
A preoperational inspection is what a new or significantly altered food establishment must pass before it can legally operate. Smoothie Me Please did not pass that first test.
The April 3 inspection, which the facility did pass with a "Met Sanitation Inspection Requirements" outcome, came after that initial failure. But five violations remained documented in the record, including one that had already been cited and left unresolved.
What These Violations Mean
The missing soap and paper towels at the only employee handwashing sink are not a paperwork problem. Handwashing is the primary mechanism for preventing the transfer of pathogens from employees' hands to food, food contact surfaces, and packaging. A sink with no soap cannot support effective handwashing, regardless of whether employees intend to use it.
For a convenience store and packaged food operation like Smoothie Me Please, where employees handle products that customers will consume without any cooking step to kill bacteria, the stakes of inadequate hand hygiene are direct. There is no heat treatment between an employee's unwashed hands and the contents of a smoothie or packaged item.
The repeat handwashing sign violation compounds this concern. Signage at handwashing sinks exists specifically to prompt employees to wash hands, particularly after using the toilet room. When that sign is absent during two consecutive inspections, it suggests the reminder mechanism was never put in place, not that it fell down between visits.
The leaking faucet on the three-compartment sink is a plumbing maintenance violation. Three-compartment sinks are used to wash, rinse, and sanitize food contact equipment. A faucet in disrepair on that fixture raises questions about whether the sink is being used properly and consistently.
The Longer Record
Smoothie Me Please has only two FDACS inspections on record, both from April 2026. That is a short history, but it is not a clean one. The facility failed its preoperational inspection on March 26, logging eight violations before it was cleared to open. It then passed its first sanitation inspection on April 3, but only while carrying five unresolved violations and one repeat citation.
For a location this new, the repeat violation is particularly notable. The handwashing sign had been flagged during the preoperational inspection and was still absent eight days later when the sanitation inspector arrived. That is a low-cost, low-effort correction that was not made.
None of the five violations from the April 3 inspection were corrected during the visit itself. That means inspectors left the facility with no soap at the handwashing sink, no paper towels, no self-closing door on the toilet room, no covered waste receptacle, and a leaking kitchen faucet, all documented and unresolved.