MIAMI, FL. Food served at Lo D'Alex on SW 8th Street on April 22 came from unapproved or unknown sources, meaning it bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely, and the restaurant never closed.
State inspectors cited the restaurant at 9610 SW 8 St that day for 11 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations, one of the heaviest single-inspection tallies in the facility's documented history. The restaurant remained open throughout.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the most direct threat to anyone who ate there. When food enters a kitchen from an unapproved supplier, it has not passed the federal inspection chain that screens for Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli. If someone gets sick, there is no paper trail to trace back to the source.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for failing to follow parasite destruction procedures. Fish served raw or undercooked, such as ceviche or sushi-style preparations, must be frozen to specific temperatures for specific durations to kill parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm. The record does not indicate those steps were taken.
Shell stock identification records were inadequate as well. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are high-risk foods frequently consumed raw. Without harvest tags and chain-of-custody records, there is no way to trace a shellfish-linked illness to its origin.
The remaining high-severity violations formed a cascading failure. No person in charge was performing duties. No written employee health policy existed. Employees were not reporting illness symptoms. Handwashing facilities were inadequate, and the technique used when washing occurred was cited as improper. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Time as a public health control was not being used correctly, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods was posted.
Intermediate violations included improper sewage or wastewater disposal, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is what state and federal food safety officials identify as the primary driver of multi-victim outbreaks. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads directly from infected food workers to customers when no reporting structure exists and no one in management is enforcing it. At Lo D'Alex on April 22, inspectors found both conditions present simultaneously.
Improper handwashing technique compounds that risk. Even when a worker goes through the motion of washing hands, incorrect technique leaves pathogens in place. Combined with inadequate handwashing facilities, the record describes a kitchen where the basic barrier between a sick employee and a customer's plate was not functioning.
The sewage disposal violation carries a separate and serious risk. Improper wastewater handling creates pathways for fecal contamination to reach food preparation surfaces. That violation, classified intermediate, was documented in the same inspection alongside food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized.
The consumer advisory violation means customers with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, elderly diners, and young children had no warning that raw or undercooked items were on the menu. Those groups face the highest risk of severe illness from parasites and pathogens that cooking would otherwise eliminate.
The Longer Record
The April 22 inspection was not an anomaly. Lo D'Alex has 27 inspections on record and 323 total violations documented across its history. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern of high-severity violations is not new. On April 2, 2025, inspectors cited 9 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. On April 18, 2024, the tally was again 9 high-severity and 4 intermediate. The April 22, 2026 inspection, with 11 high-severity violations, is the highest single-day count in the recent record.
The September 2025 inspection recorded zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, a result that stands in sharp contrast to every inspection immediately before and after it. The April 3, 2025 follow-up to the 9-violation inspection the day prior logged zero high-severity violations. That pattern, a heavy inspection followed by a clean follow-up, has repeated across multiple inspection cycles without producing lasting change.
The day after the April 22, 2026 inspection, a follow-up visit on April 23 found 1 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations, a reduction from the prior day. The underlying sourcing, illness policy, and parasite procedure violations documented on April 22 were not addressed within a single day's remediation.
Still Open
State inspectors documented 11 high-severity violations at Lo D'Alex on April 22, including food from an unapproved source, no employee illness reporting structure, and parasite destruction procedures not followed.
The restaurant was not closed.
It served customers that day, and the day after, and the record shows it has accumulated 323 violations across 27 inspections without a single emergency closure in its history.