HOLLYWOOD, FL. An inspector walked into Las Delicias del Peru Corp on Johnson Street on August 11 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, an employee not reporting symptoms of illness, and no person in charge present or performing duties, six high-severity violations in a single visit, and the restaurant stayed open.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the one that carries the longest shadow. State records do not identify where the food came from, only that it bypassed standard supplier channels, meaning if a customer got sick, investigators would have no supply chain to trace.
The shellfish violation compounds that concern. Las Delicias del Peru is a Peruvian restaurant, a cuisine that commonly features raw or lightly cooked shellfish. Without adequate shellfish identification tags and purchase records, there is no way to determine where oysters, clams, or mussels originated, which harvest waters they came from, or whether they cleared federal inspection.
The illness-reporting violation is a different category of risk. An employee working while symptomatic with a gastrointestinal illness can contaminate food directly, and a single sick worker has been the starting point for outbreaks affecting dozens of customers. The inspector documented that the facility's system for flagging and removing ill workers was not functioning.
The handwashing violation recorded on the same visit means that even when employees made an attempt to wash their hands, the technique was insufficient to remove pathogens. That finding, combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized and multi-use utensils that were not cleaned between uses, describes a kitchen where contamination had multiple simultaneous routes.
No manager was present or performing supervisory duties when the inspector arrived.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. Every licensed food supplier in Florida operates under USDA or FDA inspection protocols designed to screen for Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before product reaches a restaurant kitchen. When a restaurant sources food outside those channels, that screening disappears entirely. If a customer becomes ill, health investigators follow the supply chain backward to identify the contamination point. With no approved source on record, that investigation hits a wall immediately.
The shellfish traceability violation is closely related. Shellfish are filter feeders, meaning they concentrate whatever is in the water around them, including bacteria, viruses, and toxins. Harvest location and date are the two pieces of information that allow health officials to connect an illness to a specific shellfish bed and pull product before more people are exposed. Las Delicias del Peru could not produce adequate records on August 11.
The illness-reporting failure and the handwashing technique failure work together in the worst possible way. An employee who is symptomatic and is not removed from food handling duties becomes a direct transmission route. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, requires as few as 18 viral particles to cause infection and survives on surfaces for days. Improper handwashing technique, even when a sink is used, leaves enough viral or bacterial load on hands to transfer to any surface or food touched afterward.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned and sanitized carry whatever was on them from the last use into the next. The intermediate violation, improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, adds another layer. Bacterial biofilms, which are colonies that adhere to surfaces and resist standard cleaning, can develop on utensils within 24 hours of inadequate washing and become progressively harder to eliminate.
The Longer Record
The August 11 inspection was the 29th on record for Las Delicias del Peru. Across those 29 inspections, state records show 221 total violations accumulated, and the restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The recent inspection history shows no meaningful improvement. On September 11, 2025, inspectors cited five high-severity violations and one intermediate. On February 21, 2025, six high-severity violations and one intermediate, the identical count as August 11. On November 19, 2024, six high-severity violations. On January 3, 2024, five high-severity violations and three intermediate.
That is six inspections across roughly two and a half years, each producing between four and six high-severity violations. The August 11 visit is not a new low. It is the continuation of a line that has not moved.
The January 2026 pair of inspections, two visits on consecutive days, produced five high-severity violations on January 23 and two on January 24, suggesting a rapid correction followed by a return to previous patterns by September of the same year.
Still Open
Florida law gives inspectors the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations, including food from an unknown source, an employee not reporting illness, inadequate shellfish traceability, unsanitized food contact surfaces, and no manager on site, did not meet that threshold on August 11.
Las Delicias del Peru on Johnson Street was open for business when the inspector left.
