DAVIE, FL. When state inspectors walked into Garden Grill and Steak on SW 45th Street on August 13, they found a restaurant with no written employee health policy, no system for workers to report illness symptoms, and food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized.
All six violations they documented that day were high-severity. The restaurant stayed open.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector found no person in charge present or performing duties at the time of the visit. That absence sets the conditions for every other violation that follows.
The employee illness violations are the most direct threat to customers. Inspectors cited both the lack of a written health policy and the failure of employees to report illness symptoms as separate high-severity violations. Together, they describe a workplace with no mechanism to keep sick food handlers away from the food.
The food contact surface citation adds a third layer. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and any equipment that touches food directly are primary transfer points for bacteria. When those surfaces are not properly cleaned and sanitized, contamination moves from surface to plate.
The restaurant also drew a citation for improperly using time as a public health control. When a kitchen uses time rather than refrigeration to keep food safe, it follows a strict protocol: food is tracked from the moment it enters the temperature danger zone and discarded within a set window. The citation indicates that protocol was not being followed.
Finally, the menu includes raw or undercooked items, and the restaurant had no consumer advisory posted. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised have no way of knowing that risk exists.
What These Violations Mean
The employee illness violations are not paperwork failures. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads most efficiently when a sick food worker handles food without restrictions. A written health policy and a reporting requirement are the two basic controls designed to interrupt that chain. Garden Grill and Steak, according to the August 13 inspection, had neither in working order.
Unsanitized food contact surfaces compound that risk. Bacteria and viruses transferred from an unwashed surface to raw meat, cooked food, or produce can reach a customer without any further warning. A steakhouse handles raw protein at volume. The stakes for surface sanitation are higher than in a kitchen that does not.
The time-as-public-health-control violation is less visible to a customer but equally serious. Food held in the temperature danger zone between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit allows bacterial populations to double roughly every 20 minutes. When the time tracking breaks down, there is no way to know how long that food has been accumulating risk.
The missing consumer advisory affects the most vulnerable diners specifically. A customer with a compromised immune system ordering a steak cooked medium-rare, or a pregnant woman ordering a dish with raw components, has the right to that information before they order. Without the advisory, they cannot make an informed choice.
The Longer Record
August 13 was not an outlier. The inspection history at Garden Grill and Steak across 30 recorded visits shows a facility that cycles between clean inspections and high-severity clusters without resolving the underlying problems.
The March 2026 inspection, five months before this one, also produced six high-severity violations and two intermediate violations. The September 2023 and April 2023 inspections each produced three high-severity violations. The facility has accumulated 178 total violations across its inspection record.
Two inspections, in February 2024 and April 2023, showed zero violations. Those clean visits sit inside a record that otherwise trends toward repeated high-severity findings, which makes the pattern harder to explain as bad luck or a difficult inspection day.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. In Florida, an emergency closure order is issued when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health, typically through active pest infestation, sewage backup, or loss of running water. Six high-severity violations, including failures in illness reporting and food surface sanitation, did not cross that threshold on August 13.
Open for Business
The state's inspection system is designed to identify exactly the kind of risk documented at Garden Grill and Steak on August 13: a management structure that is not functioning, workers with no formal obligation to report illness, surfaces that are not being sanitized, and customers who are not being warned about undercooked food on the menu.
The inspection identified all of it.
Garden Grill and Steak served dinner that night.
