MIAMI, FL. Inspectors walked into La Casita Cafeteria, Inc. on NW 7th Street on August 31 and found food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means the ingredients on customers' plates had bypassed every federal safety checkpoint designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and other pathogens before they reach a table.
The cafeteria was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The August 31 inspection produced 10 total violations, six of them high-severity. Beyond the unknown food source, inspectors cited toxic chemicals stored or labeled improperly near food, a violation that creates a direct route to acute poisoning if a container is mislabeled or positioned to contaminate a prep surface. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, which state records describe as a primary vehicle for bacterial transfer between raw and ready-to-eat items.
The remaining high-severity citations covered three additional failure points. Inspectors found that time was not being properly used as a public health control, meaning food sat in the temperature danger zone without the tracking required to limit bacterial growth. There was no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, leaving elderly diners, pregnant women, and anyone with a compromised immune system without the warning the state requires. And the cafeteria had no written employee health policy, which means there is no documented protocol for keeping sick workers out of food preparation.
Four intermediate violations rounded out the inspection: improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is among the most consequential a food service inspector can write. When a restaurant sources ingredients outside the USDA and FDA-regulated supply chain, there is no paper trail. If a customer gets sick, investigators cannot trace the food back to a processing facility, a farm, or a distributor. The supply chain exists specifically to intercept contaminated product before it reaches a kitchen; bypassing it removes that protection entirely.
The employee health policy violation compounds the risk. Without a written policy, there is no mechanism requiring a worker with Norovirus symptoms to stay home or report an illness before handling food. Norovirus is responsible for roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and food workers are a documented transmission route. A written policy is not a guarantee, but its absence is a documented gap in the facility's defenses.
The improper sewage disposal citation is the one that tends to alarm public health officials most visually. Raw sewage contains fecal coliform bacteria, and improper disposal creates a contamination pathway that can reach food prep surfaces, utensils, and handwashing stations. Combined with the toilet facility citation, which records show was also flagged as inadequate, the infrastructure for basic hygiene at La Casita Cafeteria was failing on multiple fronts simultaneously.
The Longer Record
The August 31 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show La Casita Cafeteria has accumulated 365 total violations across 26 inspections on file, a figure that averages to more than 14 violations per visit.
The pattern in the most recent years is consistent and severe. The September 2025 inspection produced 12 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate citations in a single visit. Two inspections conducted on the same day in November 2025 together recorded 11 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate ones. The March 2025 inspection found 6 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The May 2024 inspection matched the current count exactly: 6 high-severity, 4 intermediate.
Going back further, the December 2023 inspection produced 8 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate citations. The facility has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record.
The categories repeat. High-severity violations have appeared in nearly every inspection cycle for years. The specific citations shift from visit to visit, but the volume does not. A facility accumulating violations at this rate across this many inspections is not experiencing isolated lapses.
Still Open
State law gives inspectors the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. That order was not issued on August 31.
Six high-severity violations, including food from an unverifiable source and toxic chemicals stored near food, were documented at La Casita Cafeteria on that date. The cafeteria at 3210 NW 7th Street continued to serve customers.
