LAKE WORTH, FL. A state inspector walked into Strathmore Bagel and Deli at 4095 SR 7 on June 16 and found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, no written employee health policy, and workers who were not reporting illness symptoms. The restaurant was not closed.

The inspection logged seven high-severity violations and one intermediate, a haul that would have triggered an emergency closure at the same address just two months earlier. This time, inspectors left without padlocking the door.

What Inspectors Found

1HIGHFood not cooked to required minimum temperatureHigh severity
2HIGHNo employee health policy or inadequate policyHigh severity
3HIGHEmployee not reporting symptoms of illnessHigh severity
4HIGHImproper hand and arm washing techniqueHigh severity
5HIGHInadequate shell stock identification / recordsHigh severity
6HIGHNo consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foodsHigh severity
7HIGHPerson in charge not present or not performing dutiesHigh severity
8INTMulti-use utensils not properly cleanedIntermediate

The food temperature violation sits at the center of the record. State code requires poultry to reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit internally. Salmonella survives below that threshold. The inspection did not specify which menu item was undercooked, but the deli serves a full breakfast and lunch menu.

The shell stock violation adds a separate traceability problem. Strathmore carries shellfish, and state rules require dealers to keep identification tags on each bag through the point of sale. Without those tags, there is no way to trace an oyster or clam back to its harvest bed if a customer gets sick.

The handwashing citation was not about skipping the sink entirely. Inspectors found employees washing their hands with improper technique, meaning pathogens can remain on hands even after a washing attempt. That distinction matters when those hands are then touching food.

No person in charge was present or performing duties during the inspection, which the state flags as a management failure. CDC data links the absence of active managerial control to three times more critical violations at a given facility.

What These Violations Mean

The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is, in public health terms, a direct transmission setup. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads primarily through food workers who handle food while sick. A written health policy is the mechanism that tells workers when to stay home and gives management a documented basis for sending them home. Without one, the decision is informal, inconsistent, and often wrong.

The undercooked food violation compounds that risk. If a worker is shedding a pathogen and the food they prepared also fails to reach a kill temperature, two barriers against illness have failed at the same time.

The shell stock traceability violation is a quieter danger but a serious one. Shellfish are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked. Vibrio and other shellfish-borne pathogens can cause severe illness, and health investigators depend on harvest tags to identify the source bed and pull product when an outbreak begins. No tags means no recall path.

Multi-use utensils that are not properly cleaned develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours. Those biofilms are resistant to standard cleaning and can transfer pathogens to every item the utensil subsequently contacts.

The Longer Record

Strathmore Bagel and Deli: Recent Inspection Pattern

2026-06-167 high-severity violations, 1 intermediate. Facility remained open.
2026-04-14 to 04-16Emergency closure for roach and fly activity. 5 high-severity violations on closure date. Reopened April 16 after two follow-up inspections.
2026-02-095 high-severity violations, 2 intermediate. No closure.
2024-12-16Emergency closure for roach and fly activity. Reopened December 17.
2025-08-255 high-severity violations, 3 intermediate. No closure.
2021-06-17Emergency closure for rodent activity. Reopened June 18.

State records show 47 inspections at this address going back through the facility's history, with 263 total violations documented across those visits. That is an average of more than five violations per inspection over the life of the record.

The four emergency closures span five years. The first was for rodent activity in June 2021. Two more followed for roach and fly activity, in December 2024 and again in April 2026. Each time, the facility corrected enough to reopen within one to two days. Each time, high-severity violations reappeared at subsequent inspections.

The February 9, 2026 inspection found five high-severity violations. The April 14 inspection that triggered the most recent closure also found five. The June 16 inspection found seven, the highest single-visit high-severity count in the recent record. That inspection did not result in a closure.

Strathmore Bagel and Deli was open for business the morning after inspectors documented that a person in charge was absent, food was not reaching required cooking temperatures, and no policy existed to keep sick workers out of the kitchen.