As I often do, I stopped by Bella Bakery last Sunday morning to grab some tostadas, croquetas, and a pastelito. To my surprise, there was plenty of parking and nobody there. Bella’s Bakery was closed. No sign. No info. Just closed.
Well, we come to find out that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Food Safety issued a stop use order shutting down Bella Bakery in Miami Springs after a visit on March 8, 2024. Bella Bakery has been an incredibly popular and successful local business. However, the report is leaving some customers disgusted.
Here are some of the 29 citations in the 56 page report:
- ROACHES AND FLIES
- Live roaches found crawling on the left side of the large oven located in the kitchen area and on the floor in the food service area.
- Numerous black flies found flying through all the various processing areas in the food establishment.
- UNCLEANLINESS
- Heavy dried on milk accumulated on steam wand that was used after more than four hours without being cleaned.
- Black wet wiping cloths placed on preparation table located in front of the oven were not held in sanitizer between uses.
- IMPROPER FOOD HANDLING
- Food employees observed not washing hands between entering and exiting the processing areas; touching unclean equipment, handling money and returning to serve food items for customer order.
- Food employees observed wearing gloves to handle food items, entering and exiting the food preparation areas, touching unclean equipment, handling money and returning to serve food items for customer order without changing gloves between changing tasks and after gloves become contaminated.
- IMPROPER FOOD TEMPERATURES / STORAGE
- Multiple food items placed inside the hot holding unit were probed with an accurate thermometer found out of temperature: empanada 108°F; chicken empanada 107°F; Jamaican beef patties 103°F; ham and cheese sandwich on 125°F; ham croquettes 125°F; chicken croquettes 123°F; pork sandwich 106°F; black beans 105°F; pork chops 106°F; beefsteak 107°F.
- Food items placed inside the cold holding unit located next to hot holding unit were probed with an accurate thermometer and found out of temperature: ham and cheese sandwiches 45°F; ham spread sandwiches 44°F.
- No date mark available for ham spread (ham, cream cheese) prepared more than 24 hours ago inside the cold holding it located next to orange juice machine.
- Single service containers were found stored inside of the unisex employee restroom.
This is just a sampling. You can view the full 56 page report here.
Bakery is Open Again
As of Friday morning, we were happy to see that Bella Bakery was open again. The question is, will the customers come back?
What do you think?
Have you been a customer at Bella Bakery? What do you think of the violations? Will you go back?
Let us know in the comments section below or via social media.
