A grocery store in a West Miami-Dade strip mall incited the fury of an inspector due to roaches scurrying around, bugs in pasta, and rodents that had a fondness for flour.
Eight and a half pages of infractions were found during the Florida Department of Agriculture’s inspection on Tuesday at La Bodega Bestway Supermarket, located at 11400 W. Flagler St.
According to county and state records, La Bodega is owned by Gemini L.T.A., which is led by Lazaro Acosta, the agency’s sole officer, and operates out of a 4,282 square foot, five bedroom, five and a half bathroom West Miami-Dade residence.
Acosta’s grocery was found to have several infractions, which Inspectors James Zheng and Julio Azpurua observed.
In the food service area, live roaches were discovered nesting inside wall shelving fixtures, between deli display cases and inside display case door frames, in the kitchen, including under the table where dry food is kept, and in crevices on the outside of the commercial oven.
“Underneath the preparation table, there are rodent droppings and a bitten bag of corn flour.” There was a Stop Sale involving the corn flour.
“Several dead roaches discovered under the kitchen, deli, and food service area’s equipment, tables, and rolling carts.”
“Insect infestations were found in multiple bags of dry pasta on shelves.” Stop Sales impacted every single bag.
In the vegetable section, there were “multiple live flies flying around raw onions.”
“Inside the walk-in cooler are trays containing raw meat and raw chicken that are not covered.”
In the kitchen, “Dough mix inside the walk-in cooler, buckets of tamales with mixed vegetables, and pieces of cooked pork were revealed.”
“Buckets containing fruit juices were stored underneath deli cases without any lids or other protection,” according to the deli section.
“Multiple boxes of food stored on the walk-in freezer floor were exposed to splash” occurred at the food service area. More precisely, “a leaky condenser unit inside the walk-in cooler caused multiple boxes of cassava to be stored under dripping water.”
“No splash guard was present between the food preparation table where food was observed and the (kitchen) handwash sink.”
“Food offered in a manner that misleads or misinforms the consumer,” meaning that “food’s true appearance, color, or quality was misrepresented by lights.” “Red light has been used to display raw meats in the retail cold unit” was the source of the issue.
Food preparation and serving When handling food and cleaning utensils, workers “did not wash their hands before donning gloves and between entering/exiting the processing areas.”
Additionally, they “left the kitchen area to pick up ingredients in the walk-in cooler and return to continue cooking, then handled clean utensils for orders without changing gloves between tasks” while wearing single-use (i.e., use for one task and then dump into the trash) gloves.
However, there was no soap at the handwashing station in the kitchen next to the bread ovens, at the handwashing station next to the band saw, or at the handwashing station in the deli that was devoid of paper towels.
A juice blender on a floor blocked the deli handwashing sink. “Big trash can blocking access to the handwash sink next to the walk-in cooler door” was present in the food service area.
Back to the food: even after being in the walk-in fridge for more than six hours, “multiple containers with black beans” that had been prepared the day before were subject to Stop Sale orders due to their excessive warmth. Orders to Stop Using
In the deli section, ham, mortadela, white cheese, turkey, pork loin, and havarti cheese were among the overly heated foods that were subject to Stop Sales. Basura.
At the opposite end of the thermometer were items such as fried ham croquetas, fish croquetas, beef croquetas, fish patties, pork chunks, a whole chicken, chicken with potatoes, ground plantains, chicken wings, and pork rips that were kept in heated holding but not hot enough. Everybody below 135 degrees experienced Stop Sales.
“Food residue and dirt accumulation on the door frames inside the display cold cases” were evident in the deli section.
Workers who didn’t have sink stoppers in the kitchen ware washing sinks fixed leaky stoppers with rags and plastic film.
Outside, the back door and surrounding areas had “accumulated trash, dirt, and litter,” and the dumper lids were left open during the inspection.
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