MIAMI, FL. When state inspectors walked into DOYA on NW 24th Street on October 8, they found a restaurant serving raw shellfish to customers with no records showing where that shellfish came from and no warning posted to let diners know they were eating it.
That combination, seven high-severity violations in a single inspection, was not enough to trigger an emergency closure. The restaurant stayed open.
What Inspectors Found
The shellfish violations are the most acute concern for anyone who ate at DOYA around the time of the inspection. Inspectors cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification records, meaning there was no documentation linking the oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu to a certified, traceable source.
That matters because shellfish are consumed raw or lightly cooked, and without harvest tags and supplier records, there is no way to trace an illness back to a contaminated batch if customers get sick.
The restaurant was also cited for having no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. Any diner ordering raw shellfish that day had no posted notice that they were taking on that risk.
Inspectors also found that time was not being properly used as a public health control. When a kitchen uses time rather than temperature to keep food safe, strict tracking is required to ensure food does not sit in the bacterial growth zone too long. The records to support that system were not in order.
Food contact surfaces were found not properly cleaned or sanitized, a condition inspectors cited as a cross-contamination risk. Multi-use utensils had also not been properly cleaned, a separate intermediate violation that compounds the surface contamination concern.
The handwashing picture was compounded by two distinct violations: the facilities themselves were inadequate, and the technique used by employees was improper. Both were cited as high severity. A person in charge was either not present or not performing managerial duties, a condition that inspectors flagged as a management failure tied to the accumulation of other violations.
What These Violations Mean
The shellfish traceability violation is not a paperwork technicality. When a customer becomes ill after eating raw oysters or clams, public health investigators need harvest tags and supplier records to identify the contaminated batch, pull it from other restaurants, and stop more people from getting sick. Without those records at DOYA, that chain of investigation breaks immediately.
The consumer advisory violation compounds that risk directly. Elderly diners, pregnant women, young children, and anyone with a compromised immune system face significantly higher danger from raw shellfish. A posted advisory is the minimum standard for informed choice. On October 8, that standard was not met.
The two handwashing violations together describe a kitchen where proper hygiene was structurally compromised. Inadequate facilities means the infrastructure to wash hands correctly did not exist in the right places. Improper technique means that even when employees attempted to wash their hands, pathogens were not reliably removed. Both violations were present at the same time.
The absence of a functioning person in charge is the violation that ties the others together. State data shows establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at roughly three times the rate of those with engaged supervision. On October 8, the record at DOYA reflects what that looks like in practice.
The Longer Record
October's inspection was not an outlier. State records show DOYA has been inspected 15 times and has accumulated 111 total violations, with no emergency closures on record.
The pattern of high-severity violations is consistent across years. In January 2026, a single inspection visit produced eight high-severity violations and two intermediate, the closest prior parallel to the October findings. Earlier that same month, a separate inspection logged one high and one intermediate. In April 2024, inspectors cited five high-severity violations. The October 2026 inspection, with seven high-severity violations, represents the second-highest single-visit high-severity count in the facility's recorded history.
The facility has never been emergency-closed despite the volume of accumulated citations. The prior inspection in April 2026 found only one high-severity violation, a result that looks markedly different from what followed six months later.
Still Open
Seven high-severity violations in a single inspection is a significant threshold. The violations documented on October 8 touched nearly every critical system in the kitchen: sourcing, sanitation, handwashing, surface cleanliness, time controls, and management oversight.
State inspectors documented all of it, wrote it up, and left DOYA open.
