OAKLAND PARK, FL. An inspector visiting M & S Best Tropical Restaurant Inc on North Andrews Avenue on September 9 found food that had not been cooked to the required minimum temperature, a violation that means customers were served food in which pathogens like Salmonella can survive. The restaurant was not closed.
That single finding was one of seven high-severity violations documented that day. No intermediate violations were noted. All seven were the most serious classification state inspectors assign.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also found that an employee had not reported symptoms of illness, one of the most direct routes to a multi-victim outbreak. When a sick food worker continues to handle food without reporting symptoms, there is no mechanism to pull them from service before they contaminate what customers eat.
Shellfish sold or served at the restaurant lacked adequate identification records, meaning inspectors could not trace where the oysters, clams, or mussels came from. That gap matters most when someone gets sick and investigators need to trace the source.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch food directly, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. An employee was observed using improper handwashing technique, meaning pathogens can remain on hands even after a washing attempt is made. And the restaurant had no consumer advisory posted to warn customers that some items were served raw or undercooked, leaving elderly diners, pregnant women, and anyone with a compromised immune system without the information they need to make a safe choice.
No manager or person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties during the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
Undercooked food is not a paperwork problem. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a customer who eats it has no way of knowing the food never reached a safe temperature. The consumer advisory violation compounds this directly: without a posted warning, a diner who is immunocompromised, elderly, or pregnant has no indication that the food they ordered was served undercooked.
The illness-reporting failure is a separate and acute risk. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants, spreads through direct contact with an infected food worker. A worker who does not report symptoms, and a manager who is not present to enforce the policy, removes the last line of defense between a sick employee and every plate that leaves the kitchen.
Shellfish traceability is required precisely because shellfish are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked, and because contamination in a shellfish harvest can affect dozens of customers before anyone identifies the source. Without records linking the shellfish on the menu to a licensed, inspected supplier, there is no trail to follow if someone gets sick after eating at this restaurant.
The absence of a person in charge ties all of these together. CDC data associates establishments without active managerial control with three times as many critical violations. On September 9, no one in a supervisory role was correcting any of it.
The Longer Record
The September 9 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 39 inspections on file for this restaurant, with 322 total violations documented across that history.
The restaurant has been inspected repeatedly in recent years with high-severity violations appearing in nearly every visit. On November 20, 2025, inspectors found 8 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. On July 28, 2025, they found 6 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. On December 10, 2024, the count was 8 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations. On September 10, 2024, inspectors documented 8 high-severity violations.
The one exception in recent history was a February 2024 inspection that found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That result stands alone in a record otherwise defined by repeated high-severity citations.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed despite that accumulation. The September 9 inspection, with 7 high-severity violations including undercooked food and an employee who had not reported illness symptoms, did not change that.
The Pattern
A follow-up inspection was conducted the next day, September 10. Inspectors found 2 high-severity violations remaining.
That reduction from 7 to 2 in a single day suggests corrections were made quickly once the September 9 inspection was on record. But the same pattern appears in the prior history: a high-violation inspection is followed by a lower-count follow-up, and then, months later, the high counts return.
The November 2025 inspection found 8 high-severity violations. The September 2025 inspection before it had found 2. The July 28, 2025 inspection found 6 high-severity violations. The July 29 follow-up found 2.
The cycle has repeated across two years and dozens of inspections. On September 9, 2026, a customer who ordered chicken at M & S Best Tropical Restaurant had no way of knowing it had not been cooked to a safe temperature, that the employee who handled it had not reported illness symptoms, and that no manager was watching. The restaurant was open for business.
