, FL. Underground Gym, a health food store with food service, had no verifiable system in place to ensure employees reported foodborne illness symptoms, diagnoses, or exposures at the time of a state inspection last month, according to Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services records.
The September 29 inspection documented five violations at the facility. Three were classified at the priority foundation level, meaning they relate to management practices and procedural controls that underpin food safety across every transaction in the store.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector noted that there was "no verifiable manner available to ensure employees have been informed of their responsibility to report foodborne illness symptoms, diagnosis or exposure." That is not a paperwork technicality. It means the store had no documented way to confirm that employees handling food products knew they were required to stay away from work when sick.
The inspector also found "no written procedures for employees to follow when responding to a vomitus or diarrheal event." These written protocols are required because contamination events involving bodily fluids can spread norovirus and other pathogens to surfaces, products, and other workers if not contained according to a specific procedure.
No sanitizer solution test kit was available at the time of inspection, meaning staff had no reliable way to confirm that sanitizing solutions used on food-contact surfaces were mixed to effective concentrations.
The one violation corrected during the visit was a missing handwashing sign at the back room women's restroom sink. The inspector noted the required signage was provided during the inspection.
The Repeat Problem
The lack of a certified food protection manager is not a new finding at this location. Inspectors flagged the same problem at Underground Gym's preoperational inspection on November 15, 2024, where it appeared as one of two repeat violations.
That inspection, conducted before the store opened or resumed operations, found two violations, both marked repeat. The certified food protection manager gap was among them.
By the September 2026 routine inspection, nearly two years had passed and the certificate still was not available. The inspector noted: "No certified food protection manager certificate available at the time of inspection."
What These Violations Mean
The absence of an employee illness reporting system is one of the more consequential gaps an inspector can document in a food retail setting. A certified food protection manager is required specifically because someone in the operation needs to understand when an employee showing symptoms of norovirus, hepatitis A, Salmonella, or similar illnesses must be excluded from food handling. Without a verified system, there is no confirmation that any employee at Underground Gym has been told this is their legal and procedural obligation.
The missing written procedures for vomitus and diarrheal events compound that gap. Norovirus, which causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads through contact with contaminated surfaces and can survive on surfaces for days. A written cleanup protocol specifies the exact steps, personal protective equipment, and disinfectants required to contain contamination. Without one, an employee responding to such an event in a retail food environment may inadvertently spread rather than contain it.
The lack of a sanitizer test kit is a procedural failure that connects directly to surface contamination risk. Sanitizing solutions that are too dilute do not kill pathogens effectively. Solutions that are too concentrated can leave chemical residue on food-contact surfaces. A test kit is the only way to verify the concentration is within the required range, and without one, there is no way to know whether any surface in the store is actually sanitized.
Together, these three priority foundation violations describe a store where the systems designed to catch and contain contamination before it reaches customers are either absent or unverifiable.
The Longer Record
Underground Gym has two FDACS inspections on record at this location. The first, a preoperational inspection in November 2024, found two violations, both classified as repeat, suggesting the facility had prior inspection history with the same problems before that inspection was even conducted.
The September 2026 routine inspection found five violations, including one repeat. That repeat, the missing food protection manager certification, has now appeared across multiple inspection cycles without being resolved.
The store did meet sanitation inspection requirements at the September visit, meaning it was not ordered closed. But three of the five violations, the illness reporting gap, the missing vomitus event procedures, and the absent sanitizer test kit, were not corrected on site and remained unresolved at the time the inspector left the building.
