Flies on cut fruit. Roaches on a prep table. How Key West restaurants failed inspection
A pair of routine state inspections turned into a pair of Florida Keys restaurant shutdowns.
What follows comes from Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation restaurant inspections. These are the restaurants that fail inspection. A restaurant that fails inspection remains closed until passing a re-inspection.
We don’t do the inspections. We don’t control who gets inspected. We don’t control how strictly the inspector inspects. If restaurants in your part of South Florida are not included, we have nothing to do with that. If you see a problem and want a place inspected, contact the DBPR.
We don’t include all violations, just the most moving, whether internally or literally moving (because it’s alive or once was alive). Some violations get corrected immediately after the inspector points them out. But in those situations, ask yourself, why did the violations exist in the first place? And, how long would they have remained if not for the inspection?
We report without passion or prejudice, but with a side dish of humor (and, probably, indignation and exasperation).
In alphabetical order...
Mayanjali Organic Cafe, 1114 White St., Key West: Routine inspection, 12 total violations, four High Priority violations.
If the path to handwashing sinks aren’t clearer than the yellow brick road or the sinks have anything in them but moisture from the last time somebody used them, that’s a violation.
So Mayanjali got hit with “handwash sink not accessible for employee use at all times” because the “hand washing station at the front counter was blocked by multiple dishes and utensils” and the back kitchen one was “blocked by plastic Ziploc bags and wire racks.”
A kitchen handwashing sink lacked soap, which makes it hard to, you know, wash.
Does anybody know where the mop or mop sink is? Because Mayanjali got dinged for “floor soiled/has accumulation of debris” because the “floor under the triple sink at the front counter was soiled with black debris.”
Speaking of the front counter three-compartment sink, about 20 flies chose to dance around the floor drain. The inspection didn’t say how big the employee bathroom is, but 10 flies probably gave it that Amityville vibe.
Then again, that’s better than the 13 flies “landing on a half cut avocado and the prep table” in the back kitchen. The avocado got squashed with a Stop Sale and tossed.
Myanjali passed a re-inspection the next day.
Wingmasters, 934 Truman Ave., Key West: Routine inspection, 12 total inspections, four High Priority violations.
The inspector looked up and saw “the ceiling in the prep area and above the kitchen triple sink in disrepair.” Then the inspector looked in a reach-in cooler and saw the shelving “soiled.”
Looking everywhere else, the inspector saw roaches, dead and alive.
Of the 10 dead roaches, seven were under a walk-in cooler. One was in the bottom of a reach-in cooler. The other two were next to the reach-in cooler’s glass door.
The live roach count reached 18, 10 of which were “inside a bin at a prep table that has tools and a sealed bag of sugar.” Four roaches scaled the wall next to the mop sink. One roach strolled under the prep table and another one pranced on the prep table.
When the inspector returned May 3 for the re-inspection, another three dead roaches and five live roaches kept Wingmasters grounded.
The inspector returned for a same-day second re-inspection. Wingmasters passed, allowing them to reopen Thursday, May 4, in time for the weekend crowd.
This story was originally published May 11, 2023 at 9:48 AM.
