HALLANDALE BEACH, FL. Back in April, a state inspector walked into the food service area of Kolos USA LLC, a supermarket on Hallandale Beach, and found a steam table full of food that was nowhere near hot enough to be safe.
Stuffed peppers, cheese pancakes, buckwheat, veggie rice, potato wedges and mashed potatoes were all sitting in the display, and when the inspector checked them with a probe thermometer, the internal temperatures ranged between 90 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Florida law requires hot held food to stay at or above 135 degrees. The lowest reading was 45 degrees below that threshold.
It was not the first time inspectors had flagged the same problem at this store.
What Inspectors Found
State law requires hot held foods to stay at or above 135°F. Six items on the steam table at Kolos USA fell between 90 and 115°F during the April 1 inspection.
The April 1 inspection was a focused inspection, a targeted visit rather than a full facility sweep. Inspectors recorded two violations total: one priority violation and one that was marked as a repeat.
The priority violation was the temperature failure on the steam table. The repeat designation means inspectors had cited the store for the same hot-holding problem during a prior visit. The store's food items were reheated during the inspection visit itself, but none of the violations were formally corrected on site in the documentation, meaning they did not receive a corrected-on-site resolution in the inspection record.
The second violation involved flying insects observed around food processing areas. The inspector categorized this as a physical facilities maintenance failure, a finding that signals the building's condition is allowing pests access to spaces where food is handled.
What These Violations Mean
The temperature violation is the more immediately dangerous of the two findings. When hot food drops below 135 degrees Fahrenheit, it enters what food safety regulators call the temperature danger zone, the range between 41 and 135 degrees where bacteria multiply most rapidly. The longer food sits in that zone, the greater the risk that pathogens like Salmonella or Staphylococcus aureus reach levels that can cause illness.
At 90 degrees, the stuffed peppers and mashed potatoes documented at Kolos USA were sitting at roughly room temperature. A shopper who picked up a container from that steam table had no way to know the food had not been maintained at a safe temperature.
The flying insects finding adds a separate layer of concern. Insects in food processing areas are a contamination vector. Flies land on raw and finished food indiscriminately, and their presence near food handling zones creates direct cross-contamination risk. The violation is categorized as a physical facilities failure because the underlying cause is typically structural: gaps, damaged screens, or inadequate pest exclusion measures that allow insects inside.
Together, the two findings at Kolos USA describe a store where food held for sale is not being kept at safe temperatures and where the physical environment is not being maintained in a way that keeps pests out of food areas.
A Repeat Problem
The temperature violation carries a repeat designation, and the store's inspection history makes clear why.
The April 1 inspection was the seventh documented FDACS inspection at this location since the store opened. The first, a preoperational inspection in April 2025, turned up nine violations before the store began operating. A focused inspection in August 2025 found two violations. Another focused inspection in October 2025 found none.
Then came November 2025. A full inspection on November 14 produced 28 violations, two of them also marked as repeats, and the store was flagged as needing a check-back. A focused follow-up on November 4 had already found three violations. A December 2025 focused inspection found zero violations.
The April 2026 visit found the store back in violation on temperature, the same category that had driven some of the November findings.
The Longer Record
Six inspections in roughly eleven months is a substantial volume of regulatory attention for a single retail food establishment. The pattern at Kolos USA is not one of a store that started clean and deteriorated. The preoperational inspection before the store even opened found nine violations, suggesting the facility began with compliance gaps already present.
The November 2025 inspection stands out in the record. Twenty-eight violations, including two repeats, is a significant finding for a grocery operation. That inspection resulted in a "check back needed" designation, meaning regulators were not satisfied the problems had been resolved and scheduled a follow-up. The December inspection that followed showed zero violations, which appeared to represent a correction.
The April 2026 findings suggest that correction did not hold, at least on the temperature question. A steam table full of food measuring between 90 and 115 degrees is not a marginal or borderline failure. It is a significant gap between what the display showed customers and what the thermometer confirmed.
The flying insects observation in the food processing area was not noted as corrected during the April visit. That finding remained unresolved at the conclusion of the inspection.