POMPANO BEACH, FL. Food was not cooked to required minimum temperatures at Malulo's International Seafood Inc. on East Atlantic Boulevard when a state inspector visited on August 5, and the restaurant walked away with six high-severity violations and three intermediate citations without being shut down.
The undercooked food finding sits at the top of the concern list at a seafood restaurant, where the difference between a properly cooked shrimp and an undercooked one can mean the difference between a meal and a hospital visit. But it was not the only alarming finding that day.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited food described as being in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated. At a seafood operation, that finding raises the question of what, exactly, was being sold and whether customers could trust what they were ordering.
Handwashing failures compounded the picture. Inspectors cited both inadequate handwashing facilities and improper hand and arm washing technique as separate high-severity violations, meaning the infrastructure for clean hands was lacking and the technique being used was wrong even when an attempt was made.
No written employee health policy was on file, which means there was no formal system to keep sick workers out of the kitchen. And the person in charge was either absent or not actively performing supervisory duties during the inspection.
The intermediate violations added a sewage or wastewater disposal problem, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and improper use of wiping cloths.
What These Violations Mean
Undercooked food at a seafood restaurant is not a paperwork problem. Pathogens including Salmonella and Vibrio survive when fish, shellfish, and poultry are not brought to required internal temperatures, and the consequences range from severe gastrointestinal illness to life-threatening infection, particularly for older customers and those with compromised immune systems.
The handwashing citations are worth reading together. When a facility lacks adequate handwashing infrastructure and employees are also using improper technique, the result is that contaminated hands are moving from raw seafood to prepared food, from surfaces to food, throughout the shift. Studies show that proper handwashing reduces foodborne illness transmission significantly, but that reduction requires both access and correct execution. Malulo's had neither on August 5.
The absence of an employee health policy is a structural failure, not a day-to-day lapse. Without a written policy, there is no mechanism to identify a worker who is sick with Norovirus or another transmissible illness and remove them from food handling before they infect customers. Norovirus alone accounts for an estimated 20 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States annually, and sick food workers are a primary transmission route.
Improper sewage disposal creates a separate category of risk. Raw sewage contains fecal bacteria, including E. coli and other pathogens, and any cross-contamination between wastewater and food preparation areas can introduce those organisms directly into the food supply. Wiping cloths used improperly, the third intermediate violation, are a common vehicle for spreading contamination from one surface to another throughout a kitchen.
The Longer Record
The August 5 inspection was the 23rd on record for Malulo's International Seafood, and the facility has accumulated 154 total violations across that history. That is an average of nearly seven violations per inspection over the life of the record.
The pattern is not new. In December 2025, inspectors cited six high-severity and four intermediate violations, the same high-severity count as the August 2026 visit. Two months later, in February 2026, the facility drew two high-severity and two intermediate violations. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history.
The December 2025 inspection and the August 2026 inspection are the two worst on record by high-severity violation count, and they are separated by eight months. That interval did not produce a correction that held.
Going back further, the January 2024 inspection found zero violations at all, high or intermediate. That clean record makes the subsequent accumulation harder to explain as a facility that simply struggles with compliance. Something changed, or something that had been addressed stopped being maintained.
Still Open
State inspectors documented six high-severity violations at Malulo's International Seafood on August 5, 2026, including undercooked food, adulterated or mislabeled food, two separate handwashing failures, no employee health policy, and an absent or inattentive person in charge.
The restaurant was not closed.
Across 23 inspections and 154 total violations, it has never been emergency-closed. On August 5, customers who walked through the door at 900 East Atlantic Boulevard had no way of knowing what the inspector had found inside.
