MIAMI, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into the Hooters at 8695 NW 13th Terrace and left with a citation sheet listing eight high-severity violations, including one that meant employees showing symptoms of illness were not being reported before they handled food.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The April 15 inspection produced ten total violations, eight of them high-severity. The list covered nearly every major category of food safety failure: employee illness protocols, handwashing technique, chemical storage, shellfish records, surface sanitation, and temperature equipment.
Inspectors cited the restaurant for failing to maintain adequate shell stock identification and records. Hooters serves oysters, and without proper tagging records, there is no way to trace where those oysters came from if a customer gets sick.
Two separate violations involved toxic chemicals. Inspectors cited both improper storage and labeling of toxic chemicals, and a separate violation for improper identification, storage, or use of toxic substances. Both were flagged at the high-severity level.
The inspection also found that food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, that no consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods, and that the person in charge was either absent or not performing their duties. That last violation matters because managerial oversight is what prevents the other nine from happening in the first place.
On the intermediate level, inspectors flagged inadequate cooling and cold holding equipment, and improper sewage or wastewater disposal.
What These Violations Mean
The employee illness violation is the one that most directly threatened customers who ate at this location in April. Food workers who do not report symptoms of illness are the primary driver of multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, in particular, spreads aggressively when an infected employee handles ready-to-eat food, and a single worker can expose dozens of diners before any illness is detected.
The shellfish traceability violation compounds that risk in a specific way. Oysters are consumed raw or lightly cooked, meaning any pathogen present in the shellfish survives to the plate. Without proper shell stock identification records, there is no chain of custody. If a customer developed a vibrio infection or hepatitis A after eating oysters at this location, investigators would have no documentation to trace the source.
The two chemical violations, cited separately, created a risk of a different kind. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers have caused acute poisoning incidents when contents are mistaken for food-safe substances. Both violations appeared on the same inspection sheet.
The improper handwashing technique citation is not about employees skipping the sink. It means employees went through the motion of washing their hands but did so incorrectly, leaving pathogens on their hands after the attempt. Combined with food contact surfaces that inspectors found not properly cleaned or sanitized, the April inspection documented two separate contamination pathways operating at the same time.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show this Hooters location has been inspected 26 times and has accumulated 232 total violations across its history, with no emergency closures on record.
The eight most recent inspections tell a consistent story. In November 2024, inspectors cited the location for ten high-severity violations and five intermediate ones, the worst single inspection in the recent record. Seven months later, in June 2025, inspectors returned and found six high-severity violations and four intermediate ones. The September 2025 inspection produced four high-severity violations. The April 2026 inspection, at eight high-severity violations, was the second-worst on record for this location.
This is a facility that has never been emergency-closed, despite a pattern of high-severity citations that has persisted across multiple inspection cycles and multiple years. The violations found in April, including the employee illness reporting failure and the shellfish traceability gap, are not new categories of concern for this address. They are part of a record that now spans 26 inspections and 232 documented violations.
Still Open
State inspectors documented ten violations on April 15, eight of them high-severity, at a restaurant serving raw shellfish to the public. The facility was not emergency-closed.
Under Florida's inspection framework, emergency closure requires an inspector to determine that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. The April violations at this location, despite including unreported employee illness and untraceable oyster sourcing, did not meet that threshold in the inspector's determination.
The restaurant remained open.