MIAMI, FL. A state inspector visiting Cantina Grill at 14713 SW 42nd Street on July 27, 2026 found that the restaurant had not followed proper parasite destruction procedures for fish it was serving to customers, one of seven high-severity violations cited that day. The facility was not emergency-closed.
Parasite destruction requires fish intended for raw or undercooked consumption to be frozen to specific temperatures for specific durations before it reaches a plate. When those steps are skipped, parasites including Anisakis roundworms and tapeworms survive and can infect anyone who eats the food.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite violation did not stand alone. Inspectors also cited inadequate shell stock identification records, meaning there was no documentation to trace where the restaurant's shellfish, such as oysters, clams, or mussels, had come from. If a customer became sick after eating shellfish, investigators would have no harvest location or supplier to work from.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. Chemicals stored near food or without proper labels create a direct contamination pathway; a mislabeled container can be mistaken for a food ingredient by any staff member who did not place it there.
The inspector also found that no consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods. Florida law requires restaurants serving items like ceviche, sushi-grade fish, or undercooked proteins to warn customers, specifically because people who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or very young face the highest risk from pathogens and parasites in those foods.
Two of the remaining high-severity violations pointed to the same breakdown point: employees were not reporting illness symptoms, and handwashing technique was improper. Together, those two violations describe a kitchen where a sick worker could handle food without washing correctly and without telling anyone. The seventh high-severity violation was the absence of a person in charge who was actively performing supervisory duties.
The four intermediate violations covered improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, inadequate ventilation and lighting, improper waste disposal, and equipment found in poor repair.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure and the shellfish traceability gap are not administrative paperwork problems. Anisakis, a parasitic roundworm found in many saltwater fish species, causes severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and in some cases requires surgical removal from the stomach lining. Proper freezing kills it before the fish is served. Without documentation that the freezing protocol was followed, there is no way to know whether any fish served at Cantina Grill on or before July 27 was safe.
The shellfish traceability failure compounds that risk. Shellfish are filter feeders that concentrate bacteria, viruses, and toxins from the water they grow in. The shell stock tag system exists so that if customers report illness, health officials can pinpoint a harvest area and pull product. Without those records at Cantina Grill, that chain breaks entirely.
The illness reporting and handwashing violations describe a kitchen environment where the most basic disease transmission controls were not functioning. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, spreads through exactly this route: an infected food worker who does not report symptoms and does not wash hands effectively before handling food. The absence of active managerial oversight, the seventh high-severity violation, means no one in the building was responsible for catching any of it.
Improperly cleaned utensils allow bacterial biofilms to form on food-contact surfaces within 24 hours. Those biofilms are resistant to standard cleaning once established and continuously transfer bacteria to food prepared with the same equipment.
The Longer Record
The July 27 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Cantina Grill has been inspected 26 times and has accumulated 261 total violations across that history, with zero emergency closures.
The most recent comparable inspection came on March 13, 2026, when inspectors cited 5 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations. Before that, in late July 2025, the restaurant was inspected on three consecutive days: July 28 produced 8 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations, and follow-up visits on July 29 and July 30 showed the numbers dropping but not reaching zero.
That three-day stretch in July 2025 mirrors an identical pattern from August 9, 2024, when inspectors again found 8 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations at the same address. The categories cycling through these inspections, food sourcing documentation, employee illness reporting, managerial control, are not new problems being discovered. They are recurring problems being re-documented.
In the eight most recent inspections on record, Cantina Grill has never been cited for zero high-severity violations.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines an immediate threat to public health exists. Seven high-severity violations, including failures in parasite destruction, shellfish traceability, chemical storage, and illness reporting, were not enough to trigger that determination at Cantina Grill on July 27, 2026.
The restaurant remained open.
