MIAMI, FL. When state inspectors walked into Nino Gordo on NW 28th Street on June 12, they found toxic chemicals improperly stored and labeled near food, no written policy requiring sick employees to report their symptoms, and handwashing facilities that inspectors deemed inadequate. The restaurant was not closed.
That last fact is the one that lingers.
The inspection produced eight high-severity violations and two intermediate ones, a total of ten citations from a single visit at the Miami restaurant.
What Inspectors Found
The two chemical violations, cited separately, describe a scenario where cleaning agents or other toxic substances were stored or labeled in ways that created a direct risk of contamination. Mislabeled chemicals near food preparation areas are among the fastest routes to acute poisoning in a restaurant setting, because the error can happen in seconds and the customer has no way to know.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties at the time of the inspection. That single condition, inspectors note, is strongly associated with cascading failures across a kitchen, and the rest of this inspection record makes that correlation visible.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and tools that touch food directly, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Inspectors also cited employees for using improper handwashing technique, and separately cited the facility for handwashing infrastructure that was itself inadequate. Both problems at once means that even an employee who tried to wash their hands correctly could not do so.
The intermediate violations added two more layers. Inspectors found improper sewage or wastewater disposal, and toilet facilities that were inadequate or improperly maintained. Those two citations together point to plumbing conditions that make proper sanitation by employees structurally difficult.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee illness policy and an employee not actively reporting symptoms is what public health officials call an outbreak enabler. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently through food workers who are sick and either do not know they should report it or are not required to. A written health policy is not paperwork. It is the mechanism that keeps a sick employee out of the kitchen.
The handwashing violations compound that risk directly. Inadequate facilities mean the infrastructure for hand hygiene does not exist in a functional form. Improper technique means that even where facilities exist, the practice is not happening correctly. Studies consistently show that proper handwashing is the single most effective intervention against foodborne illness transmission, which makes both violations, found together at Nino Gordo on June 12, a compounding failure.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces are the third vector. Bacteria transferred from a contaminated cutting board or prep surface can reach every plate that surface touches. When that condition exists alongside inadequate handwashing and no illness reporting, the kitchen has lost three of its primary defenses simultaneously.
The sewage citation carries its own distinct risk. Improper wastewater disposal introduces the possibility of fecal contamination in a facility where food is being prepared and plated.
The Longer Record
Nino Gordo has three inspections on record, including the June 12 visit. The prior two inspections, in January 2026 and April 2025, produced a combined four high-severity violations and three intermediate ones across both visits. The June inspection alone produced eight high-severity violations, doubling the total high-severity count from the restaurant's entire prior history in a single day.
The January 2026 inspection found three high-severity violations. The April 2025 inspection found one high-severity violation and three intermediate ones. Neither visit resulted in an emergency closure.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history. It now carries 21 total violations across three inspections, with the most recent visit accounting for more than half of that total.
The facility is relatively new to the inspection record, with only three visits logged. But the trajectory across those three inspections runs in one direction. The April 2025 visit was the lightest. January 2026 was heavier. June 2026 was the worst by a significant margin.
Still Open
Florida law gives inspectors the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. Eight high-severity violations, including toxic chemical storage, no illness reporting, inadequate handwashing infrastructure, unsanitary food contact surfaces, and improper sewage disposal, did not meet that threshold on June 12 at Nino Gordo.
The restaurant remained open after the inspection.