MIAMI, FL. Back in December 2025, a state inspector walked into Su Hogar Mini Market, a convenience store on Miami's food service radar, and found something that should have stopped the operation cold: the store had no valid food permit and was selling hot food that had dropped to temperatures where bacteria thrive.
The inspection, conducted December 5 by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, turned up 11 violations total, including two priority violations and five priority foundation violations. Not one was corrected before the inspector arrived.
What Inspectors Found
The hot holding violations were the most immediate food safety concern. Inspector records show croquettes measured between 99 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and tequenos between 102 and 105 degrees, both inside the store's hot holding unit. State food code requires hot held foods to stay at 135 degrees or above. The inspector noted that food items were reheated to 165 degrees and above during the visit, marking those as corrected on site.
The steam wand on the coffee machine told a different story about routine sanitation. The inspector found "heavy dried-on milk accumulated on steam wand that was in use after more than 4 hours without being cleaned." The wand was washed, rinsed and sanitized during the inspection.
A gallon of milk had been left on the counter and measured 44 degrees Fahrenheit, three degrees above the 41-degree maximum for cold held foods. It was placed under refrigeration during the inspection.
Ham and cheese sandwiches in the display cold unit were missing date marks entirely. Ready-to-eat foods prepared on site require date labels so employees and inspectors can track how long they have been held. The marks were added during the inspection.
The store was also operating without a valid food permit, a violation under Florida Statute 500.12. The inspector noted that an application had been submitted and that the establishment had 10 days to remit the appropriate fee.
The Gaps Behind the Counter
Several violations pointed to systemic preparation failures rather than one-off oversights. The person in charge could not correctly answer questions about foodborne illness reporting responsibilities, a foundational requirement for anyone running a food operation. The inspector provided employee health guidance and a reporting agreement by email during the visit.
There was no employee health policy available anywhere in the store. There were no written procedures for handling a vomiting or diarrhea incident on the premises. There was no probe thermometer to measure food temperatures, meaning the hot holding failures documented that day may have been ongoing without anyone checking.
No sanitizer test strips were available to verify the concentration of the sanitizing solution in use.
An unlabeled container of sugar was found stored next to the coffee machine, and no hand-washing sign was posted at the hand wash sink in the back room, next to the ware wash sink.
What These Violations Mean
The hot holding failures at Su Hogar are not a paperwork problem. When cooked food like croquettes and tequenos sits between 99 and 105 degrees instead of the required 135, the food has entered what food safety regulators call the temperature danger zone, the range between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit where bacteria such as Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus multiply rapidly. A customer buying a croquette from that unit had no way of knowing it had been sitting at 99 degrees.
The absence of a probe thermometer made that failure predictable. Without a working thermometer, there is no way to know whether the hot holding unit is doing its job on any given day. The store had none when the inspector arrived.
The person-in-charge violations compound the risk. When the individual running the operation cannot correctly answer questions about foodborne illness reporting, the first line of defense against a sick employee contaminating food is gone. Florida requires food establishments to have written employee health policies precisely because sick employees working with food are a direct transmission route for illness. Su Hogar had no such policy posted or available.
The dried-on milk residue on the steam wand is a separate category of concern. A food contact surface that goes uncleaned for more than four hours during active use becomes a vehicle for bacterial contamination of every drink prepared with it.
The Longer Record
The December 5 inspection was conducted under the category of "Operating Without a Valid Food Permit, Met Sanitation Inspection," meaning the visit was triggered at least in part by the permit lapse. The data does not include a prior inspection count for this facility, so it is not possible to place this visit in a longer pattern of documented findings.
What the record does show is that none of the 11 violations were repeat citations, meaning this was the first time inspectors formally documented these specific failures at this location. That distinction matters less when a store has no thermometer, no employee health policy, no sanitizer test strips, and no valid operating permit, because those are not conditions that develop overnight.
The permit application had been submitted as of the inspection date. Whether the fee was remitted within the required 10-day window is not reflected in the inspection record.
