MARGATE, FL. Food served at La Union Restaurant of Florida on South State Road 7 on October 5 could not be traced to any approved source, inspectors found, meaning that if a customer got sick, there would be no supply chain to investigate and no way to know what they had eaten or where it came from.
That single violation was one of 13 high-severity citations logged during the October 5 inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspection record runs long. Inspectors cited employees for not washing their hands frequently enough, for washing with improper technique, and for lacking adequate handwashing facilities, three separate citations for what amounts to one cascading failure in basic hygiene.
Parasite destruction procedures were not followed, which means fish, pork, or other proteins subject to parasite risk were served without the required freezing or cooking protocols that kill organisms like Anisakis or Trichinella. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items, meaning customers had no way to know they were eating food that carried elevated risk.
Inspectors also cited improper storage of toxic chemicals near food, improperly reused single-use items, and inadequate shell stock identification records, the logs that allow health officials to trace shellfish back to their harvest beds if an illness is reported.
No person in charge was performing supervisory duties during the visit.
What These Violations Mean
Food from an unapproved or unknown source is not a paperwork problem. It means the ingredients served that day bypassed every federal and state inspection designed to screen for Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli. If a customer became ill after eating at La Union on October 5, investigators would have no supplier to contact, no lot number to pull, and no way to determine how many others may have been exposed.
The parasite destruction failure compounds that risk. State and federal rules require specific freezing temperatures or cooking times for fish and certain meats precisely because parasites survive casual cooking. Without those protocols, a customer who ordered fish that day had no assurance it had been treated.
Three separate handwashing violations at a single facility on a single day signals a systemic problem, not an oversight. Inspectors cited employees for not washing often enough, for using improper technique, and for lacking the physical infrastructure to wash properly. CDC data links establishments without active handwashing compliance to dramatically higher rates of foodborne illness transmission, and the same inspection found an employee not reporting illness symptoms, the combination most directly associated with multi-victim norovirus outbreaks.
The toxic chemical citation adds a separate category of risk entirely. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can cause acute poisoning through accidental contamination of surfaces or ingredients.
The Longer Record
The October 5 inspection was not an anomaly. La Union has 49 inspections on record and 457 total violations documented over its history. That average works out to more than nine violations per inspection visit across the life of the facility.
The pattern in recent months is consistent. Inspectors found 10 high-severity violations on July 10, 2025, followed by 4 more on July 11. On November 5, 2025, they logged 7 high-severity violations, and returned the next day to find 2 more. June 2026 brought 7 high-severity violations on June 5 and 3 more on June 6. The October 5 inspection, with 13 high-severity citations, is the worst single-day total in the recent record.
The restaurant has been emergency-closed twice. The first closure came in October 2021 for roach and fly activity, and the restaurant reopened the following day. The second emergency closure came on the same date as this inspection, October 5, 2026, also for roach and fly activity, and the restaurant reopened October 6 after a follow-up inspection found 5 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations still on the books.
That follow-up visit is worth holding. The day after an emergency closure triggered by pest activity, with 13 high-severity violations having been documented the previous day, inspectors still found 5 high-severity violations. The restaurant was cleared to reopen.
Open for Business
The emergency closure on October 5 was driven by pest activity, not by the full weight of the 13 high-severity violations, the unapproved food source, the parasite procedures, the handwashing failures, the improperly stored chemicals, or the missing consumer advisory.
On October 6, La Union Restaurant of Florida was open again.
