TAMARAC, FL. State inspectors walked into Pollo Rico Grill at 6706 N. University Drive on September 17 and found food from unapproved or unknown sources being served to customers, one of seven high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
The September inspection produced the worst single-visit violation count the Tamarac location has seen in more than two years, and it came at a facility that state records show has not passed a single inspection in recent memory without at least two high-severity citations.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. When a restaurant cannot identify where its food came from, there is no supply chain record to trace if a customer gets sick. USDA and FDA inspections that catch Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli contamination before food reaches a kitchen never happened for that product.
Alongside it, inspectors cited a failure to follow parasite destruction procedures. Certain fish, pork, and wild game require specific freezing temperatures or thorough cooking times to kill parasites including Anisakis and Trichinella. Without those steps, the parasites survive and reach the customer's plate.
The handwashing picture was documented twice as a separate failure. Inspectors cited both inadequate handwashing facilities, meaning the physical infrastructure was not up to standard, and improper technique by employees at the sink. Both violations in the same visit means the problem runs from the sink itself to the person using it.
The food contact surface violation, covering cutting boards, prep surfaces, and equipment that touches food directly, rounds out a picture in which contamination had multiple entry points on a single afternoon.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms is not a paperwork problem. It is the documented pathway for Norovirus to move from a sick kitchen worker to dozens of customers in a single service shift. Food workers with active Norovirus who prepare meals without reporting symptoms are the leading cause of multi-victim restaurant outbreaks in the United States.
The handwashing failures compound that risk directly. Inadequate facilities mean employees cannot wash properly even when they intend to. Improper technique means that even when they do wash, pathogens remain on their hands. At Pollo Rico Grill on September 17, both conditions existed at the same time.
Food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned or sanitized create a third route. Bacteria transferred from raw protein to a cutting board, and then to a ready-to-eat item, can cause illness without any single dramatic failure. It is a slow, repeatable contamination event.
The toilet facility violation, classified as intermediate, matters because inadequate restroom infrastructure discourages proper hygiene by employees and creates conditions where handwashing after restroom use is less likely. At a location already cited for handwashing failures, it is not a minor footnote.
The Longer Record
The September 17 inspection is not an outlier. State records show 24 inspections on file for Pollo Rico Grill with 186 total violations across that history. Every inspection in the available prior record turned up high-severity citations.
The pattern going back to early 2023 is consistent. In March 2023, inspectors documented nine high-severity violations and three intermediate ones. In April 2024, the count reached ten high-severity violations and two intermediate ones, the worst single-visit total in the available record until this month. The February 2026 inspection produced five high-severity violations. The March 2026 visit produced two. September 2026 brought seven.
No inspection in the visible history resulted in an emergency closure. The facility has never been shut down by the state despite accumulating violations across categories that include food sourcing, parasite controls, hygiene infrastructure, and employee illness policies, some of them appearing in multiple consecutive inspections.
The April 2024 visit and the September 2026 visit together account for 17 high-severity violations between them, and both times the restaurant continued operating.
Open for Business
State inspectors left Pollo Rico Grill on September 17 having documented food of unknown origin in the kitchen, no written policy requiring sick employees to stay home, employees not reporting illness symptoms, handwashing sinks that did not meet standards, employees using improper technique at those sinks, food contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned or sanitized, and a failure to follow parasite destruction procedures for certain proteins.
The restaurant served customers that evening.
