OAKLAND PARK, FL. A state inspection of PDQ on North Federal Highway on July 13 documented food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means there is no way to trace where that food came from if a customer gets sick. Inspectors recorded eight high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The restaurant was not closed.
The facility's 29-inspection history includes a prior emergency closure. This was not a new location finding its footing.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the one that carries the longest shadow. When a restaurant is cited for food from unapproved or unknown sources, it means inspectors could not confirm that the product came through a supplier subject to USDA or FDA oversight. If a customer becomes ill, there is no supply chain to trace.
Alongside that, inspectors found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures. At a fast-casual chicken chain, that is not a minor administrative note. Salmonella survives in poultry below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a serving of undercooked chicken is a direct transmission route.
Toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled were also documented. In a working kitchen, chemicals stored near food or without proper labeling create a contamination risk that does not require a health inspector's visit to realize, only a moment of confusion during a busy service.
The inspector also noted no person in charge was present or performing duties, and that employees were not reporting illness symptoms. Those two violations together describe a kitchen where the systems designed to catch problems before they reach a customer were not functioning.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation matters because traceability is the entire mechanism of outbreak response. When a contaminated product sickens multiple people, investigators work backward through the supply chain to identify the source and issue recalls. Food from an unapproved or unknown source breaks that chain entirely. At this PDQ location, inspectors could not verify where some of the food came from.
The undercooking violation is a direct pathogen risk, not a regulatory technicality. Chicken is the most common vehicle for Salmonella in the United States, and the 165-degree minimum internal temperature requirement exists specifically because lower temperatures allow the bacteria to survive. A customer who ate undercooked chicken at this location on July 13 had no way of knowing it.
The illness reporting violation is how outbreaks begin. A food worker who does not report symptoms, and continues preparing food, can spread norovirus to dozens of customers in a single shift. The absence of a functioning person in charge on the floor means there is no one actively monitoring whether employees are sick, whether food is cooked through, or whether chemicals are stored safely.
Improper sewage or waste water disposal, documented as an intermediate violation, introduces fecal contamination risk into the kitchen environment. That is not a plumbing inconvenience. It is a contamination pathway.
The Longer Record
This location has 29 inspections on record and 147 total violations documented across its history. It is not a new restaurant working through early compliance issues.
The prior emergency closure came in August 2023, when inspectors shut the restaurant down over fly activity. It reopened the following day. In the days surrounding that closure, from July 28 through August 1, 2023, inspectors documented a combined 9 high-severity violations across three separate visits.
The pattern since then has not been clean. The two inspections in 2024 each produced 3 high-severity violations. The two most recent inspections before this July, in August and November 2025, each produced 1 high-severity violation. That relative improvement makes the 8 high-severity violations documented on July 13, 2026 a significant reversal, not a continuation of a stable trend.
Across the eight most recent inspections on record, this location has produced at least one high-severity violation every single time.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when inspectors determine a facility poses an immediate threat to public health. Eight high-severity violations, including food from unapproved sources, undercooking, toxic chemical storage failures, and absent managerial oversight, did not meet that threshold on July 13.
The restaurant remained open after the inspection.
Customers who ate at this PDQ location that day had no indication from the exterior that anything was wrong, no orange closure sticker, no locked door. The violations documented inside were visible only to the inspector who walked through and the state database that recorded what was found.
