MIAMI, FL. Food at MOO! on SW 42nd Street was not cooked to required minimum temperatures on May 14, 2026, the same day state inspectors documented nine other high-severity violations at the restaurant and left it open for business.
The inspection that day produced 10 high-severity citations and 5 intermediate ones. The undercooking violation alone carries a specific risk: Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a kitchen without adequate temperature control has no reliable barrier between that bacteria and a customer's plate.
That was not the only chemical or biological hazard inspectors found.
What Inspectors Found
Two of the ten high-severity violations involved toxic substances. Inspectors cited the restaurant for improperly stored or labeled chemicals and separately for improper identification, storage, or use of toxic substances. Both citations on the same visit point to a kitchen where hazardous materials were not being managed as a category, not a single oversight.
The restaurant also had no written employee health policy and no system for employees to report illness symptoms. Those are two separate high-severity citations, both found on the same day. A third citation documented improper handwashing technique, meaning that even when employees washed their hands, they were not doing it correctly.
Inspectors also found inadequate shell stock identification records. MOO! serves shellfish, which are high-risk foods frequently eaten raw or lightly cooked. Without proper sourcing tags, there is no way to trace a contaminated batch if customers become ill.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and the restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items. The person in charge was either not present or not performing their duties.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy, no illness reporting, and improper handwashing technique is not three separate problems. It is one connected failure: sick workers who may not know they are required to report symptoms, and who, when they do wash their hands, are not eliminating pathogens effectively. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States with roughly 20 million cases annually, spreads almost entirely through this route.
The two toxic substance violations add a separate and immediate category of risk. Chemicals stored near or mislabeled around food can contaminate dishes directly, and the effects can be acute rather than delayed. These are not record-keeping errors. They are physical hazards.
The shellfish traceability failure matters most when something goes wrong. Oysters, clams, and mussels carry a higher baseline risk of Vibrio and other bacterial contamination than most other menu items. If a customer becomes ill after eating raw shellfish at MOO!, and the restaurant cannot produce sourcing records, public health investigators have no chain to follow.
Undercooking and unsanitized food contact surfaces compound every other violation on the list. A surface that transfers bacteria to cooked food after it leaves the heat source can undo whatever cooking did occur.
The Longer Record
The May 14 inspection was not MOO!'s worst stretch on record. It was the beginning of one. A follow-up inspection the next day, May 15, found 5 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations, meaning the restaurant entered a second consecutive inspection day with serious unresolved issues.
The facility has 14 inspections on record and 145 total violations accumulated across them. That is an average of more than 10 violations per inspection visit. The pattern across years is consistent: 4 high-severity violations in December 2022, 6 in January 2025, 8 in a May 2025 visit, and now 10 in May 2026.
The single clean inspection in this record, a May 2025 visit with zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, stands out precisely because of what surrounds it. The same month produced a separate visit with 8 high-severity violations. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed across all 14 inspections on record.
The illness-related violations, specifically the absence of a health policy and the failure to report symptoms, have appeared in multiple inspection cycles. These are not new citations for a kitchen that recently changed ownership or staff. They represent a recurring gap in how the restaurant manages the most direct human transmission risk in food service.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented 10 high-severity violations at MOO! on May 14, including undercooking, two toxic substance citations, no illness policy, and no shellfish traceability. They did not order the restaurant closed.
The follow-up inspection the next day found the restaurant still carrying 5 high-severity violations.
MOO! has never received an emergency closure order in 14 inspections spanning more than three years, and 145 violations on record.