HIALEAH, FL. State inspectors walked into Pacifico on W 29th Street on September 22 and documented food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a finding that means no government inspector ever verified that food was safe before it reached customers' plates.
That was one of ten high-severity violations cited that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspection also turned up six intermediate violations, including multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, inadequate cooling and cold-holding equipment, improper waste disposal, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and toilet facilities that were inadequate or improperly maintained.
Inspectors found two separate violations related to handwashing: employees not washing adequately, and employees using improper technique when they did wash. Both were flagged as high-severity.
Two violations involved toxic chemicals. Inspectors cited improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals, and separately cited toxic substances that were improperly identified, stored, or used. Both were flagged as high-severity findings.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, which is required when a menu includes items like raw shellfish or undercooked fish. Pacifico is a seafood restaurant.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation is among the most consequential on the list. When food bypasses USDA or FDA inspection, there is no traceability if a customer gets sick. Investigators cannot identify the source of contamination, cannot issue a recall, and cannot notify other customers who may have eaten the same product.
The illness-reporting failures compound that risk directly. When employees have no written health policy and are not required to report symptoms, a worker with Norovirus can handle food through an entire shift. Norovirus is the leading cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks in the United States, and it spreads readily through contaminated food prepared by infected hands.
The two handwashing violations together describe a kitchen where the most basic contamination barrier has broken down at both the behavioral and technical level. Inspectors did not just find that employees skipped handwashing. They found that employees who attempted to wash their hands did so incorrectly, leaving pathogens on their hands regardless.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and reused single-use items extend that contamination risk across every surface and tool in the kitchen. When combined with inadequate cold-holding equipment, which cannot keep food out of the temperature range where bacteria multiply fastest, the violations form an overlapping set of failure points rather than isolated lapses.
The Longer Record
The September 22 inspection was not an outlier. It was the worst single-day tally in recent months, but the record at Pacifico shows high-severity violations in every inspection going back years.
On April 30 of this year, inspectors cited nine high-severity violations. On August 12, 2025, they cited seven. On November 14, 2024, six. The facility has accumulated 560 total violations across 41 inspections on record, an average of more than 13 violations per visit.
Pacifico has been emergency-closed three times. Inspectors shut it down in August 2018 for rodent activity; it reopened the next day. They closed it again in August 2020 for roach activity; it reopened the following day. A third closure for rodent activity came in January 2021; the restaurant was back open within two days.
None of those closures appear to have interrupted the pattern. The eight most recent inspections on record all include at least two high-severity violations, and five of those eight include five or more.
Open for Business
The day after the September 22 inspection, state inspectors returned. That follow-up visit on September 23 found six high-severity violations and four intermediate violations.
The restaurant was not closed after either visit.
Pacifico has now been inspected 41 times, closed three times, and cited for 560 violations. After ten high-severity findings on a single afternoon in September, including food from an unknown source and no system for keeping sick workers out of the kitchen, it remained open and serving customers.
