MIAMI, FL. State inspectors visiting Chop Steakhouse & Bar on Grand Avenue on August 19, 2026 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means some of what landed on customers' plates that day had never been reviewed by a federal safety inspector.
The restaurant collected six high-severity violations and three intermediate violations in a single visit. Inspectors documented failures spanning the entire food service chain: where the food came from, how it was cooked, how surfaces were cleaned, and whether customers were even told they were being served raw or undercooked items.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food sourcing violation stands out in a restaurant that markets itself as a steakhouse. When a facility cannot document where its meat or other food products came from, there is no chain of custody, no federal inspection stamp, and no way to trace an illness back to a supplier if a customer gets sick.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for failing to cook food to required minimum internal temperatures. At a steakhouse, that finding is direct: meat left undercooked can harbor Salmonella and other pathogens that a proper cook temperature would have killed.
The handwashing violation compounds both of those risks. Inspectors did not simply find that employees skipped handwashing. They found that employees used improper technique, meaning washing happened but in a form that leaves pathogens on the hands and transfers them to food, surfaces, and utensils.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and the facility was also cited for failing to properly use time as a public health control. When a kitchen does not hold food at safe temperatures, it can use a documented time limit as a substitute. That substitute was not being followed correctly here, meaning food sat in the bacterial growth zone longer than the rules allow.
The sixth high-severity violation: no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items. At a steakhouse serving items like rare beef, that notice is legally required so that customers with compromised immune systems, elderly diners, pregnant women, and young children can make an informed decision before they order.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of unapproved food sourcing and undercooking is particularly serious because each one removes a layer of protection that exists specifically to catch the other. Federal inspections at the supplier level catch contamination before it reaches the kitchen. Proper cooking temperatures kill pathogens that slip through. When both fail at the same facility on the same day, there is no remaining safety net between the food and the customer.
The improper sewage disposal citation adds a separate contamination pathway. Raw sewage contains E. coli, hepatitis A, norovirus, and other pathogens. When waste water is not properly contained and removed, it can reach food prep areas, food contact surfaces, and utensils.
The multi-use utensil citation compounds the surface contamination problem. Bacterial biofilms form on improperly cleaned utensils within 24 hours and are resistant to standard cleaning once established. Combined with the food contact surface violation, the August inspection documented a kitchen where contamination had multiple routes to the plate.
None of the six high-severity violations at Chop Steakhouse on August 19 triggered an emergency closure order.
The Longer Record
The August 2026 inspection is not an outlier. State records show Chop Steakhouse & Bar has accumulated 72 total violations across 12 inspections on file, and the trajectory over the past year has moved in the wrong direction.
The October 2025 inspection produced the same violation profile as August: six high-severity and three intermediate violations. The February 2026 inspection recorded four high-severity and three intermediate violations. The restaurant had two clean inspections in late 2023 and one in April 2024, but the pattern that followed those clean visits has been a steady accumulation of high-severity citations.
Three of the last four inspections have each produced at least four high-severity violations. The facility has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record.
The August 2026 visit tied the facility's worst single-inspection high-severity count, matching October 2025 exactly. Six high-severity violations, three intermediate violations, and the restaurant remained open both times.
As of the August 19 inspection, Chop Steakhouse & Bar on Grand Avenue was still serving customers.
