MEDLEY, FL. Inspectors visiting La Mia Restaurant at 7911 NW 72 Ave on August 27 found the kitchen had no procedures in place to destroy parasites in fish, pork, or wild game, a failure that leaves customers exposed to Anisakis, tapeworm, and Trichinella. The restaurant was not closed.
That single violation was one of six high-severity citations issued during the inspection, alongside two intermediate violations. State records show the Medley restaurant has accumulated 347 total violations across 23 inspections on file, and has never once been emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction citation means the kitchen lacked a documented, verified process for freezing or cooking certain proteins to the temperatures and time intervals required to kill parasites. For a restaurant serving Italian cuisine, where raw or lightly cooked fish preparations are common, that gap is direct exposure.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for having no employee health policy, or an inadequate one. That means there is no written framework requiring sick workers to stay out of the kitchen, and no protocol for reporting illness.
Food contact surfaces were found not properly cleaned or sanitized, a violation that turns every cutting board, prep table, and slicer into a potential transfer point for bacteria between raw and ready-to-eat foods. Inspectors also documented improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning employees were making handwashing attempts that left pathogens behind.
The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, leaving customers with no way to make an informed decision about their risk. Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled, a condition that can cause acute poisoning if a mislabeled container reaches the kitchen line.
Multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned, and ventilation and lighting were found inadequate.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure is the most acute risk on this inspection report. Parasites including Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork survive in undercooked protein and cause serious gastrointestinal illness. The only reliable protections are verified freezing protocols or confirmed cooking temperatures. Without documented procedures at La Mia Restaurant, there is no way to confirm either happened.
The combination of no employee health policy and improper handwashing technique at the same facility is a compounding problem. Norovirus spreads primarily through infected food handlers who either do not know they should stay home or who return to prep work without washing properly. Both conditions were present in this kitchen on August 27.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and inadequately cleaned multi-use utensils create a secondary contamination route. Bacterial biofilms develop on surfaces within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning and become progressively harder to remove. At a facility where these violations appear repeatedly, the surfaces themselves become part of the hazard.
Toxic chemicals improperly stored near food represent a different category of risk entirely. This is not a slow-developing bacterial problem. A mislabeled container or an improperly stored cleaning product can contaminate food immediately, and the consequences can be acute.
The Longer Record
Twenty-three inspections on file. Three hundred forty-seven total violations. Zero emergency closures.
The August 2026 inspection is not an outlier in La Mia Restaurant's history. It is the pattern. The six most recent inspections on record each produced at least two high-severity violations, and four of those six produced five or more. The January 2026 inspection logged six high-severity violations and one intermediate, identical in severity count to the August visit. The August 2024 inspection produced five high-severity and three intermediate violations. In August 2022, inspectors cited the restaurant for nine high-severity violations and two intermediate ones.
The violations are not rotating through new categories. Employee health policies, food contact surface sanitation, and handwashing failures appear across multiple inspection cycles. These are not corrections that didn't hold. They are conditions that have recurred across years.
No prior inspection in the facility's history triggered an emergency closure order.
Open for Business
State inspectors left La Mia Restaurant open on August 27 after documenting six high-severity violations, including a kitchen with no parasite destruction procedures, no employee health policy, improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, flawed handwashing technique, unlabeled or improperly stored toxic chemicals, and no posted advisory warning customers about raw or undercooked foods.
The restaurant has operated through 347 recorded violations without a single emergency closure.
It was open the day after this inspection.
