DAVIE, FL. A state inspector visited Kekoon Restaurant and Lounge on Sheridan Street on May 8 and documented six high-severity violations, including food sourced from an unapproved or unknown supplier and food not cooked to the required minimum temperature. The restaurant was not closed.
Not one of the six violations cited that day was low-level paperwork. Every single one carried a direct pathway to foodborne illness.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious a restaurant can receive. Food obtained from unapproved or unknown suppliers has not passed USDA or FDA inspection, meaning there is no verified chain of custody and no way to trace the product if a customer becomes ill.
Inspectors also cited food not cooked to the required minimum temperature. Undercooked poultry can harbor Salmonella, which survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause severe gastrointestinal illness within hours of consumption.
Two separate handwashing violations were documented on the same visit. Inspectors cited both inadequate handwashing by food employees and improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning employees were either skipping handwashing entirely or performing it in a way that left pathogens on their hands.
Food contact surfaces, including cutting boards and prep equipment, were found not properly cleaned or sanitized. Those surfaces become transfer points for bacteria between raw and ready-to-eat food.
The sixth violation was the absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked menu items. Without that notice, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or otherwise vulnerable have no way to make an informed choice about what they order.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of an unknown food source and undercooking is not a coincidence of paperwork. Food from unapproved suppliers may have been stored, transported, or processed outside any regulatory framework. When that food is then cooked below the required temperature, any pathogens it carries, including Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli, are not killed.
The two handwashing violations compound the risk significantly. Hands are the most common vehicle for transferring bacteria from raw food, contaminated surfaces, and the human body onto food that customers eat. Inspectors documented both a failure to wash and a failure to wash correctly, meaning the contamination pathway was open at multiple points during the same shift.
Improperly sanitized food contact surfaces close the loop. A cutting board used for raw protein that is not properly cleaned between uses can transfer bacteria to every item prepared on it afterward. At Kekoon on May 8, all three of those failure points, sourcing, cooking temperature, and surface sanitation, were present simultaneously.
The missing consumer advisory matters most to the customers least equipped to absorb the consequences. A pregnant woman ordering a dish with undercooked protein, or an elderly diner with a compromised immune system, has no warning from the menu that the food may not have reached a safe temperature.
The Longer Record
The May 8 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Kekoon has been inspected 22 times and has accumulated 154 total violations across that history.
The most recent prior inspection, in July 2025, produced four high-severity and three intermediate violations. The inspection before that, in December 2024, matched May's count exactly: six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. The November 2024 inspection cycle was worse, with nine high-severity violations documented on November 6 alone, followed by a follow-up visit the next day.
The pattern is not one of a restaurant that occasionally slips. It is one of a restaurant that cycles through serious violations, clears them for a follow-up, and then accumulates them again. The February 2025 inspections both showed zero high-severity violations, which means the facility is capable of meeting standards. The question the record raises is why those standards do not hold.
Kekoon has never been emergency-closed in its 22 inspections on record. That includes the November 2024 visit with nine high-severity violations, the December 2024 visit with six, and now the May 2026 visit with six more.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations at Kekoon on May 8, including food from an unknown source and food not cooked to temperature, did not meet that threshold.
The restaurant served customers that day.