NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FL. State inspectors visiting Los Leones at 1699 NE 163rd Street on July 30, 2026 found food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means customers had no way of knowing whether what they were eating had ever passed a federal safety inspection.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. Food from unapproved sources has not been inspected by the USDA or FDA, which means there is no verification that it was handled, stored, or transported safely before it reached the kitchen.
Inspectors also found that employees were not reporting symptoms of illness, and that handwashing technique was improper. Both violations create a direct route for pathogens to move from a sick worker's hands onto food and then onto a customer's plate.
Shellfish records were inadequate, meaning the restaurant could not demonstrate where its oysters, clams, or mussels came from. If a customer became ill after eating raw shellfish at Los Leones, investigators would have had no paper trail to follow.
Toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled. Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch food directly, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. No consumer advisory was posted to warn customers that raw or undercooked items carry elevated risk.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of unreported employee illness and improper handwashing is the specific pairing that public health officials identify as the most common driver of multi-victim outbreaks in restaurant settings. Norovirus spreads through exactly this mechanism: a sick worker who does not report symptoms continues handling food, and imperfect handwashing leaves the virus on surfaces and ingredients.
The food sourcing violation compounds every other risk on the list. When food arrives from an unapproved or unknown supplier, there is no inspection record, no temperature log from transport, and no recall mechanism if contamination is later discovered. If a customer at Los Leones got sick from Listeria or Salmonella, investigators would face the same traceability gap that the shellfish records violation creates separately: nowhere to start.
Improperly stored or labeled chemicals near food represent a different category of danger entirely. Mislabeled cleaning agents have caused acute poisoning incidents in restaurant settings when they were mistaken for food-safe products. The risk is immediate, not cumulative.
The absence of a person in charge is not a paperwork problem. CDC data shows that establishments operating without active managerial oversight accumulate critical violations at roughly three times the rate of those with engaged management on the floor. On July 30 at Los Leones, inspectors found both the management failure and seven of its predictable consequences in the same visit.
The Longer Record
Los Leones has 28 inspections on record and 267 total violations documented over its history. The July 30 visit, with 8 high-severity citations, is not an outlier. It fits a pattern that state records have been tracking for years.
The two most recent midyear inspections before this one, in January 2026 and August 2024, each produced 7 high-severity violations. The April 2024 inspection produced 5. The restaurant has not had a single inspection in the past three years that came back clean of high-severity findings.
The facility has been emergency-closed twice. In February 2016, inspectors shut it down for roach activity and it reopened two days later. In June 2018, a sewage leak combined with roach activity triggered a second closure. Neither closure appears to have interrupted the accumulation of high-severity violations in subsequent years.
The day after the July 30 inspection, a follow-up visit on July 31 found 2 high-severity violations still present. The most acute findings from the day before had been addressed, but the restaurant's underlying record, 267 violations across 28 inspections and two prior emergency closures, remained unchanged.
Still Open
State inspectors documented eight high-severity violations at Los Leones on July 30, 2026, including food from an unknown source, employees not reporting illness, improper handwashing, unsanitized food contact surfaces, and improperly stored toxic chemicals.
The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
