MIAMI, FL. A state inspector walked into Surry Hills Coffee at 8226 NE 2nd Ave on September 8, 2026, and found employees who were not reporting symptoms of illness, no written health policy to require them to, and improper handwashing technique on top of that. The facility was not closed.
By the time the inspection was complete, the record showed 11 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate violations, one of the most concentrated single-visit tallies in the restaurant's 15-inspection history.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting violation is the one that should alarm anyone who ate there in the days surrounding the inspection. State records show employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, and the facility had no written health policy requiring them to do so. Those two violations together mean there was no system in place to keep a sick worker out of the kitchen, and no documentation that anyone was expected to try.
The handwashing violation compounded that risk. Improper technique means pathogens remain on hands even when a worker goes through the motion of washing. Combined with unreported illness, the pathway from a sick employee to a customer's food was essentially unobstructed.
Inspectors also found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and a separate citation for toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. Two chemical violations in a single inspection at a food service facility means the risk of contamination through mislabeling or proximity to food was not theoretical.
The parasite destruction citation is notable for a coffee shop. That violation applies when a facility serves fish, pork, or wild game without following proper freezing or cooking protocols to kill parasites including Anisakis and Trichinella. The presence of that violation suggests Surry Hills Coffee serves menu items beyond coffee that carry that specific risk.
Inadequate shell stock identification records rounded out the list. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, require chain-of-custody documentation precisely because they are consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without those records, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch if a customer gets sick.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is the most direct route to a multi-victim outbreak. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States, spreads primarily through infected food workers who handle ready-to-eat food. A written health policy is the minimum structural safeguard against that. Surry Hills Coffee did not have one on September 8.
The food contact surface sanitization failure matters because surfaces that appear clean can still carry bacterial loads from prior use. Cutting boards, prep counters, and utensils that are not properly sanitized between uses transfer bacteria directly to food. At Surry Hills Coffee, that risk existed alongside the handwashing failure, meaning two of the most basic contamination barriers were compromised at the same time.
The consumer advisory violation is specifically dangerous for elderly customers, pregnant women, and anyone with a compromised immune system. Without a posted advisory, those customers have no way of knowing which items on the menu carry elevated risk from raw or undercooked ingredients.
The sewage disposal violation, listed as intermediate, carries its own severity. Improper sewage handling creates the potential for fecal contamination throughout a facility, a risk that operates independently of every other violation on the list.
The Longer Record
Surry Hills Coffee: Inspection History
Surry Hills Coffee has been inspected 15 times on record and has accumulated 99 total violations across that history. It has never been emergency-closed.
The September 2026 inspection was not a sudden collapse. Every prior inspection on record found at least one high-severity or intermediate violation. The facility has never produced a clean inspection in its documented history.
What changed on September 8 was the scale. Prior visits found one, two, or three high-severity violations. This inspection found 11. That is not a facility that slipped on a single issue. It is a facility where multiple independent safety systems failed simultaneously.
The March 2026 inspection, six months before this one, found two high-severity violations. Whatever corrections were made at that point did not hold.
Still Open
State records show Surry Hills Coffee was not emergency-closed following the September 8 inspection. Eleven high-severity violations, including sick employees with no policy requiring them to report illness, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and compromised food contact surfaces, were documented at an operating food service facility in Miami.
The facility remained open.
