DAVIE, FL. When a state inspector visited Fat Stork at 8270 Griffin Road on September 18, 2026, they found that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, that the restaurant had no adequate employee health policy, and that no person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties. The facility was not closed.
Six of the eight violations recorded that day were classified high-severity. Two prior emergency closures are on the restaurant's record, both for roach activity.
What Inspectors Found
The illness reporting violation sits at the center of the September inspection. State records show employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, which inspectors flag as a direct outbreak enabler. That finding was paired with a separate citation for having no adequate written employee health policy, meaning there was no formal framework requiring sick workers to stay home or disclose symptoms in the first place.
The absence of a responsible manager on duty compounded both of those findings. Without active managerial oversight, inspectors have no one on site enforcing any of the rules that the policy violations already show were not being followed.
Handwashing drew two separate citations: one for inadequate facilities and a second for improper technique. Both were classified high-severity. Those two violations together mean that even when employees attempted to wash their hands, the infrastructure and the method were both flagged as insufficient.
The sixth high-severity citation involved shell stock identification records. Fat Stork serves shellfish, which are consumed raw or lightly cooked and carry elevated risk of Vibrio and norovirus contamination. Without proper tags and records, there is no way to trace the source of a shellfish lot if a customer becomes ill.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting cluster is the most acute public health concern in this inspection. Norovirus, which causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads directly from infected food workers to customers when sick employees continue working and handling food. At Fat Stork, inspectors found no policy requiring workers to report symptoms and documented that workers were, in fact, not reporting them. Those are two separate failures stacked on top of each other.
The handwashing citations add a transmission pathway on top of the illness reporting gap. Inadequate handwashing facilities means the physical infrastructure for proper hygiene was not in place. The improper technique citation means that even where handwashing was attempted, it was not being done correctly. Studies consistently show that improper technique leaves pathogens on hands even after a wash.
The shell stock traceability violation carries a different kind of risk. Shellfish harvested from contaminated waters can carry Vibrio vulnificus or hepatitis A. The tag and record system exists specifically so that if a customer gets sick, public health officials can identify the harvest lot and pull it from the supply chain. Without those records at Fat Stork, that chain of accountability breaks.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, one of the two intermediate violations, create bacterial biofilms within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning. Those biofilms are resistant to standard sanitizing and can transfer pathogens to every dish the utensil touches afterward.
The Longer Record
Fat Stork: Inspection Pattern, 2018 to 2026
Fat Stork has 35 inspections on record and 248 total violations accumulated over its history. The two prior emergency closures, in March 2018 and June 2019, both involved roach activity and both resulted in same-day or next-day reopenings after corrections.
The high-severity violation counts from recent inspections show a consistent pattern rather than an isolated bad day. The February 2024 inspection produced six high-severity violations. The September 2024 inspection, seven months later, produced six high-severity violations again. The January 2026 inspection produced five. The September 2026 inspection produced six.
Between those high-count inspections, two visits in March 2024 and one in September 2024 showed zero high-severity violations, which indicates the restaurant is capable of passing inspections cleanly. What the record also shows is that clean inspections have not been followed by sustained compliance.
Fat Stork left the September 18 inspection open for business, with six high-severity violations on the books and no person in charge on the floor.
