HOLLYWOOD, FL. A state inspector walked into Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine on N SR 7 on September 8 and documented food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, toxic substances improperly stored, and no one present who was actually performing the duties of person in charge. The restaurant logged 10 high-severity violations and one intermediate violation that day. It was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooking violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate there that day. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Without confirmation that food reached required temperatures, customers had no way to know whether the proteins on their plates had been cooked to a safe internal temperature.
The toxic substances violation compounds the picture. Improperly stored or identified chemicals near food preparation areas create a direct path to chemical contamination of food or surfaces. That risk is immediate, not theoretical.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Customers with compromised immune systems, elderly diners, pregnant women, and young children are at elevated risk from raw shellfish and undercooked proteins. Without a posted advisory, none of them had the information to make an informed choice.
The Illness Risk Built Into the Staffing
Three of the ten high-severity violations on September 8 were tied directly to employee illness policy. The inspector cited the restaurant for having no written employee health policy, for employees not reporting symptoms of illness, and for the person in charge failing to perform their duties.
Those three violations together describe a kitchen where sick workers could prepare food without any formal system requiring them to report symptoms, without a manager actively monitoring compliance, and without a documented policy to consult. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads through exactly this kind of gap.
The handwashing facilities were also cited as inadequate. Without functional handwashing infrastructure, the absence of an illness reporting system becomes worse, not better.
What These Violations Mean
The shellfish traceability violation is easy to overlook next to undercooking and toxic storage, but it carries its own serious weight. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are consumed raw or lightly cooked and are among the highest-risk foods served in any restaurant. When shell stock identification records are missing or inadequate, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch back to its source if customers get sick. That traceability is the entire mechanism for stopping an outbreak once it starts.
The food contact surface violation means cutting boards, prep surfaces, or equipment were not properly cleaned and sanitized between uses. Bacteria transferred from one food to another through an unsanitary surface is one of the most common and preventable causes of foodborne illness. In a kitchen that also had undercooking and time-temperature control failures on the same inspection day, contaminated prep surfaces multiply the exposure risk.
Time as a public health control, when used correctly, allows food to remain in the temperature danger zone for a defined window before it must be discarded. When that system is not properly implemented, food that has been sitting in the bacterial growth range for an unknown period of time stays in service. Customers eat it without any safeguard in place.
The Longer Record
The September 8 inspection was not an aberration. State records show Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine has been inspected 27 times and has accumulated 170 violations across its history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The prior inspection record shows a consistent pattern of high-severity findings. The November 4, 2025 visit produced five high-severity violations and one intermediate. The July 1, 2025 visit produced five high-severity violations. The January 15, 2025 inspection produced four high-severity violations and two intermediate. Going back further, the May 20, 2024 inspection produced five high-severity violations and two intermediate, and the March 26, 2024 visit produced five high-severity violations and three intermediate.
The September 8 visit, with ten high-severity violations, was the highest single-day count in the available record. It was followed the next day, September 9, by a callback inspection that found zero high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations, the same outcome as the November 5, 2025 callback that followed the prior year's five-violation visit.
The pattern is consistent: a high-severity inspection, a clean callback the following day, and then a return to high-severity findings at the next routine visit. The September 8 inspection produced ten high-severity violations across categories that included management failures, illness policy gaps, undercooking, toxic storage, and shellfish traceability. The restaurant served customers through all of it.
