MIAMI, FL. Back in April 2026, a state inspector walked into La Brasa Grill at 2320 SW 87th Ave and documented food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, a violation that means pathogens like Salmonella can survive in poultry served directly to customers.
That was one of six high-severity violations cited that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The temperature violation was not the only finding that placed customers at direct risk. Inspectors also cited employees for not reporting illness symptoms, meaning someone showing signs of a communicable illness may have been handling food and serving customers that day.
Two separate violations involved toxic chemicals: one for improper storage or labeling, a second for improper identification, storage, or use. That is two distinct citations in the same category on the same visit.
Inspectors also found food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, inadequate handwashing facilities, and improper sewage or wastewater disposal. The four intermediate violations included multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, improper use of wiping cloths, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
The undercooked food citation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at La Brasa Grill in April. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a single undercooked piece of chicken can sicken a customer within hours. There is no visual way for a customer to verify whether their food reached a safe temperature.
The employee illness reporting failure compounds that risk. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, spreads through food handlers who are symptomatic but working. When a restaurant has no system to remove sick employees from food preparation, every customer who ate there that day shared that exposure.
The two chemical violations are a separate category of danger. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers create the risk that a cleaning agent is mistaken for a food-safe product. Two citations in this category on a single visit suggests the problem was not isolated to one shelf or one container.
Improper sewage disposal is the violation that most customers would find alarming if they understood what it means. Raw sewage contains fecal bacteria, and improper disposal creates conditions where that contamination can spread through a facility. Combined with inadequate handwashing facilities, the conditions documented on April 13 made proper hygiene structurally difficult even for employees who wanted to follow protocol.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was La Brasa Grill's 26th on record. Across those inspections, the facility has accumulated 343 total violations. It has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern in the prior inspection history is difficult to explain away as isolated incidents. In November 2025, five months before the April visit, inspectors cited the restaurant for nine high-severity and two intermediate violations. In February 2024, the count was ten high-severity and five intermediate. In July 2023, it was twelve high-severity and five intermediate.
The July 2023 inspection stands as the single worst on record: twelve high-severity violations in one visit. That was followed by a February 2024 inspection with ten high-severity violations. Then November 2025 with nine. The April 2026 inspection, at six high-severity violations, sits in the middle of that range.
The Pattern
What the history shows is not a restaurant that had a bad week. It is a facility that has cycled through high violation counts repeatedly across nearly three years of documented inspections, with brief stretches of lower counts in between.
The September 2022 inspection showed six high-severity violations, the same number as April 2026. The February 2022 inspection showed nine. The violations have shifted in category from visit to visit, but the severity level has remained consistently elevated.
In between those high-count visits, there were inspections with one or two violations. That variation suggests the problems are not structural in the sense of permanent physical deficiencies, but operational, meaning they depend on what employees and management do on a given day.
The toxic chemical citations in April are not a category that appeared frequently in the prior record summaries. The undercooking citation, however, is a recurring concern at any facility where temperature control is not consistently monitored.
La Brasa Grill has never received an emergency closure order across 26 inspections and 343 violations on record. After the April 13, 2026 visit, with six high-severity violations including undercooking, two chemical hazard citations, an illness reporting failure, and improper sewage disposal, the restaurant remained open for business.