NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FL. Inspectors visiting Crafty Crab Cajun Seafood Restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard on April 20 found food from unapproved or unknown sources inside a restaurant that serves seafood, including shellfish, to the public. The state cited the restaurant for 11 high-severity violations that day. It remained open.
The April 20 inspection was not a one-off bad day. Inspectors returned on April 21 and documented 11 high-severity violations again, along with four intermediate violations. The restaurant has now accumulated 256 total violations across 21 inspections on record and has never been emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious in state code. Inspectors could not verify where the food came from, which means there is no supply chain record, no USDA or FDA inspection stamp, and no way to trace the source if a customer becomes ill.
The shellfish problem compounds that. Crafty Crab is a Cajun seafood concept, meaning shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are core to its menu. State law requires shell stock identification tags to remain with each batch of shellfish so inspectors and health officials can trace the origin of any illness outbreak. Those records were inadequate on April 20.
Two separate handwashing violations were cited during the same inspection. Inspectors flagged both inadequate handwashing by food employees and improper hand and arm washing technique. That means employees were either skipping handwashing or performing it incorrectly, and the two citations together suggest both problems existed simultaneously.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled, with a second, related citation for toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. The person in charge was cited as not present or not performing duties. The combination of absent management and improperly stored chemicals near a food preparation environment is not a paperwork problem.
What These Violations Mean
The absence of an employee health policy and the failure of employees to report illness symptoms are not administrative oversights. Without a written policy, there is no mechanism to keep a sick worker out of the kitchen. Norovirus, which causes approximately 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads through exactly this pathway: an infected food handler who does not know they are required to report symptoms, or who has not been told the policy, prepares food and passes the virus to customers.
The food sourcing violation carries a different kind of risk. Food that bypasses federal inspection can harbor Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli with no prior screening. At a seafood restaurant, that risk is concentrated in shellfish, which are often consumed raw or lightly cooked and are among the highest-risk foods in a commercial kitchen. The missing shell stock records mean that if a customer became ill after eating shellfish at Crafty Crab on April 20, investigators would have no records to trace where the shellfish came from.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and multi-use utensils that were not properly sanitized allow bacteria to transfer between raw and cooked food. Bacterial biofilms can develop on surfaces within 24 hours and are resistant to standard cleaning if the surfaces are not properly sanitized first. In a seafood kitchen handling raw shellfish, those surfaces carry particularly high contamination potential.
The chemical storage violations create a separate and immediate hazard. Chemicals stored near or above food, or stored without proper labeling, can contaminate food directly through spills or mislabeling. Combined with absent managerial oversight, there is no one responsible for catching that error before food reaches a customer.
The Longer Record
The April 20 inspection did not represent a new low for Crafty Crab on Biscayne Boulevard. It was consistent with a pattern that stretches back years. Inspectors documented 10 high-severity violations during a September 2025 visit. A May 2024 inspection produced 7 high-severity violations. Even visits that came back lighter, three high-severity violations in February 2025 and August 2024, showed the restaurant was never free of critical-level citations.
Across 21 inspections on record, the restaurant has accumulated 256 total violations. That averages more than 12 violations per inspection visit. The violations in the most serious categories, food sourcing, illness reporting, and handwashing, have appeared across multiple inspection cycles, not just in the most recent visits.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
Still Open
A follow-up inspection took place the next day, April 21. Inspectors returned and found 11 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations, a count equal to or worse than what they had documented 24 hours earlier.
Crafty Crab on Biscayne Boulevard was open for business on both days.