MIAMI, FL. Inspectors walked into Candies Cabaret at 2663 NW 36 St during the week of April 19 and documented 10 high-severity violations in a single visit, the worst tally of any facility inspected in Miami that week. The citations included food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, poultry not cooked to required minimum temperatures, no employee health policy, inadequate handwashing, and no person in charge present or performing duties. Fourteen other Miami restaurants were also flagged for high-severity violations during the same seven-day stretch.
The Worst of the Week
Candies Cabaret's 10 high-severity citations stand out not just for their volume but for what they describe together. An absent or inactive person in charge. No written health policy for employees. Workers not washing hands adequately, and those who did attempt to wash using improper technique. Food arriving from suppliers with no documented approval. Raw poultry served without reaching safe internal temperatures. Each of those failures compounds the others.
El Palacio de los Jugos at 1100 E 4 Ave drew eight high-severity citations. Inspectors flagged food from unapproved or unknown sources, no employee health policy, workers not reporting illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing facilities, improper handwashing technique, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and two separate chemical storage violations involving improperly labeled or stored toxic substances.
Vale Food Company Brickell at 900 S Miami Ave also collected eight high-severity violations. Among them: parasite destruction procedures not followed for fish or other at-risk proteins, time used as a public health control without proper documentation, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items, inadequate shellfish traceability records, and improper chemical storage. Employees were also cited for not reporting illness symptoms and for using improper handwashing technique.
MIA Market at 140 NE 39 St matched that count with eight high-severity violations of its own, including food from unapproved sources, food in poor condition or mislabeled, food not cooked to minimum temperature, improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, no consumer advisory, improper chemical storage, and no person in charge present. No manager on site. No policy. Food of questionable origin.
Spanglish and Grails at 2800 N Miami Ave was cited for eight high-severity violations including parasite destruction failures, food not cooked to required temperatures, time-as-public-health-control misuse, inadequate handwashing, improper technique, no consumer advisory, and improperly stored chemicals.
Sovereign of Miami LLC at 22 NE 3 Ave drew eight high-severity violations as well, including shellfish traceability failures, parasite destruction procedures not followed, food in poor condition, food not cooked to minimum temperature, time-as-public-health-control misuse, no consumer advisory, improper chemical storage, and inadequate handwashing by food employees.
Bahama Fish at 7202 SW 8 St was cited for seven high-severity violations. Inspectors found no person in charge present, no employee health policy, inadequate handwashing facilities, improper handwashing technique, improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, time-as-public-health-control misuse, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods.
Tayrona at 2519 NW 2 Ave also drew seven high-severity violations, including food in poor condition, improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, time-as-public-health-control misuse, no consumer advisory, improper chemical storage, and both inadequate handwashing and improper technique cited separately.
Perl by Chef IP at 2420 NE 186 St was cited for six high-severity violations, including inadequate shellfish identification records, no consumer advisory for raw items, improper handwashing technique, improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, toxic substances improperly stored, and an employee not reporting illness symptoms.
El Encuentro Restaurant at 3511 NW 17 Ave drew three high-severity violations involving improperly sanitized food contact surfaces and two separate chemical storage failures, alongside intermediate violations for improper sewage disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, and improper sanitizing procedures.
Ming Yuan Restaurant at 3006 NW 2 Ave was cited for four high-severity violations including improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, no consumer advisory for raw items, and two chemical storage violations. Barbeque Stop Company at 1400 NW 23 St drew two high-severity violations, one for food in poor condition and one for improperly sanitized food contact surfaces.
El Gallito Grill at 205 SW 8th Ave and Lo D'Alex at 9610 SW 8 St each drew one high-severity violation for improperly sanitized food contact surfaces. SR Ceviche at 2576 NE Miami Gardens Dr was also cited for one high-severity violation in the same category.
What These Violations Mean
The most dangerous cluster of violations this week involves the combination of management absence and employee illness policies. At Candies Cabaret, Bahama Fish, MIA Market, and El Palacio de los Jugos, inspectors cited either no person in charge or no written employee health policy, or both. When no manager is present and workers have no documented guidance on when to stay home, a sick employee has no formal system pushing them to report symptoms. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads readily from a single food handler to dozens of customers through contaminated surfaces and improperly handled food.
Food from unapproved or unknown sources, cited at Candies Cabaret, El Palacio de los Jugos, and MIA Market, creates a specific traceability problem. When food moves through inspected, licensed channels, there is a paper trail. If a customer gets sick, investigators can trace the product back to its origin. Food from unapproved sources has no such trail, and it has bypassed the federal safety inspections that licensed suppliers must pass.
Shellfish traceability failures, cited at Vale Food Company Brickell, Perl by Chef IP, and Sovereign of Miami LLC, carry a parallel risk. Oysters, clams, and mussels are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without shell stock identification tags, there is no way to determine where those shellfish were harvested if a customer develops a vibrio or norovirus illness. Parasite destruction failures, documented at Vale Food Company Brickell, Spanglish and Grails, and Sovereign of Miami LLC, mean fish or other at-risk proteins were served without the freezing protocols designed to kill organisms like Anisakis.
Chemical storage violations appeared across nine of the fifteen flagged facilities this week, including El Palacio de los Jugos, Vale Food Company Brickell, MIA Market, Spanglish and Grails, Sovereign of Miami LLC, Tayrona, Ming Yuan Restaurant, Bahama Fish, and El Encuentro Restaurant. Cleaning chemicals stored near or above food preparation areas, or left unlabeled, can contaminate food directly if they spill. Mislabeled containers create a second risk: a worker who grabs the wrong bottle may apply a caustic substance to a food contact surface and not recognize the error.
The Longer Record
Bahama Fish carries the longest inspection history of any facility cited this week, with 44 prior inspections on record. That is the accumulated weight of years of regulatory contact, and this week's seven high-severity violations, including no person in charge, no employee health policy, and inadequate handwashing infrastructure, are not the findings of a new operator still learning the system.
El Gallito Grill has 33 prior inspections on record, Barbeque Stop Company 31, and El Encuentro Restaurant 28. All three were cited again this week. Lo D'Alex has 27 prior inspections; Vale Food Company Brickell has 26; Sovereign of Miami LLC and SR Ceviche each have 24 or 25. These are not first-time encounters with state inspectors.
Candies Cabaret, which led the week with 10 high-severity violations, has only 16 prior inspections on record. It is a comparatively shorter history, but the violations documented this week, including food from unapproved sources and poultry not reaching required temperatures, are among the most serious categories in the inspection framework.
El Palacio de los Jugos at 1100 E 4 Ave has just 7 prior inspections on record, the shortest history of any facility cited this week. Eight high-severity violations on what amounts to an early inspection represents a steep start. Whether inspectors return to find improvement or find the same pattern is the question the record has not yet answered.