MIAMI, FL. Inspectors who walked into Fogo de Chao on SW 72nd Place on August 11, 2026 found food coming from sources that could not be traced, meaning if a customer got sick, investigators would have no chain of custody to follow back to its origin.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented in a single visit to the upscale Brazilian steakhouse at 8815 SW 72 Place in Miami-Dade County. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source violation is among the most serious a restaurant can receive. Food that bypasses USDA and FDA inspection channels carries no verification that it was handled, stored, or processed safely before it arrived in a kitchen.
Inspectors also found that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, and that handwashing technique was improper throughout the facility. Both violations were flagged as high severity.
The person in charge was either absent or not actively performing supervisory duties during the inspection. Food contact surfaces, including cutting boards and prep equipment, were not properly cleaned or sanitized.
The restaurant was also using time as a public health control without doing so properly, a method that allows food to sit at unsafe temperatures for a defined window instead of being temperature-controlled. When that method is misapplied, food can remain in the bacterial growth zone far longer than regulations allow.
Fogo de Chao was also missing a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items on its menu. Without that notice, customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised have no way of knowing they are ordering food that carries elevated risk.
Single-use items were being reused, the one intermediate violation in the report.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is not a paperwork problem. When food enters a restaurant outside of regulated supply chains, there is no record of where it came from, who handled it, or what conditions it traveled through. If a customer became ill after eating at this location, investigators would have no trail to follow.
The employee illness reporting failure is the violation most directly tied to multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness, spreads rapidly when a symptomatic worker continues to handle food. A single infected employee working a dinner service at a high-volume restaurant like Fogo de Chao can expose dozens of customers before anyone realizes what is happening.
Improper handwashing technique compounds that risk. Even when an employee goes through the motion of washing their hands, doing it incorrectly leaves pathogens on the skin. Combined with unsanitized food contact surfaces, the transfer pathway from an infected worker to a customer's plate becomes direct.
The missing consumer advisory matters most for the people least able to recover from a foodborne illness. Fogo de Chao is a churrascaria, a restaurant where meat is carved tableside and where doneness levels vary. Elderly diners, pregnant women, and anyone on immunosuppressive medication are the people that advisory is designed to protect.
The Longer Record
The August 11 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show this location has accumulated 218 violations across 23 inspections on record, a figure that includes repeated cycles of serious findings followed by short-term corrections.
The two days immediately before this inspection tell the pattern plainly. On July 14, 2025, inspectors cited the restaurant for nine high-severity and four intermediate violations. A follow-up the next day, July 15, still found six high-severity and three intermediate violations. On November 19, 2025, the count was again nine high-severity and three intermediate. The November 20 follow-up brought that down to two high and one intermediate.
The August 11, 2026 visit produced seven high-severity violations. The follow-up inspection on August 12 showed one high-severity violation remaining.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. The only clean inspection in the recent record came in January 2025, when inspectors found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That result sits between two inspection cycles that each produced nine high-severity findings.
Fogo de Chao at SW 72nd Place has now been cited for high-severity violations in five of the last six documented inspection visits, covering a span from mid-2025 through August 2026.
On August 11, inspectors documented seven high-severity violations at the restaurant, including food from an unapproved source and employees not reporting illness symptoms. The restaurant served customers that night.
