MIAMI, FL. Inspectors who visited Polo Norte Kendall Inc. at 13901 SW 42 St. on April 29 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning no USDA or FDA inspection trail existed for what was being served to customers that day.
That single violation, on its own, can be the kind that triggers an emergency closure at other facilities. At Polo Norte Kendall, it was one of seven high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The toxic chemical storage violation placed improperly stored or labeled chemicals in proximity to food, a condition that can cause acute poisoning without any visible sign of contamination. Inspectors also cited food described as being in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated, a category that covers spoilage, tampering, and labeling failures that prevent customers from knowing what they are eating.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and equipment that touches food directly, were cited as not properly cleaned or sanitized. That finding, combined with multi-use utensils flagged as inadequately cleaned, created layered cross-contamination risk across the kitchen.
The handwashing picture was particularly complete in its failure. Inspectors found both that the facility lacked adequate handwashing infrastructure and that employees were not washing their hands and arms correctly when they did attempt it. Both violations were cited on the same visit.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is one of the most consequential a restaurant can receive. When food comes from unapproved or unknown suppliers, there is no inspection record, no traceability, and no recall mechanism. If a customer becomes ill, public health investigators have no supply chain to follow. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli have all been linked to uninspected food sources, and without documentation, the origin of an outbreak cannot be established.
The chemical storage violation carries a different but equally direct risk. Improperly labeled or stored cleaning chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate food without any visible sign. A customer would have no way to know, and neither would the employee plating the dish.
The two handwashing violations together describe a facility where proper hand hygiene was not structurally possible and was not being practiced even where it was. Studies consistently show that handwashing failures are among the most direct routes for pathogen transfer from food workers to customers. Having both the infrastructure failure and the technique failure cited simultaneously is not a redundancy. It is a compounding problem.
No consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods. That omission directly affects elderly customers, pregnant women, young children, and anyone with a compromised immune system, the populations most likely to be severely harmed by undercooking. They had no notice.
The Longer Record
The April 29 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Polo Norte Kendall has been inspected 26 times and has accumulated 321 total violations across that history.
The most recent stretch is particularly dense. In September 2025, inspectors visited on back-to-back days. The September 17 visit produced 13 high-severity violations and 6 intermediate ones. The September 18 follow-up still showed 4 high and 2 intermediate violations. A clean inspection on August 20, 2025 was followed within two months by that September collapse.
The pattern goes further back. January 2025 brought 8 high-severity violations. December 2024 brought 7 high and 2 intermediate, almost exactly mirroring the April 2026 inspection count. The facility has never been emergency-closed despite accumulating violations in the same serious categories across multiple years.
The April 29 visit is the eighth inspection on record to produce 4 or more high-severity violations. That count, across a 26-inspection history, means roughly one in three visits has resulted in a high-severity finding at that level or worse.
Still Open
State records show no emergency closure was ordered following the April 29 inspection. Seven high-severity violations, including food from an unknown source, toxic chemicals stored near food, and a complete breakdown of handwashing practice, were documented, and the restaurant continued operating.
The 321 violations recorded across 26 inspections make Polo Norte Kendall one of the more extensively cited facilities in its inspection history in Miami-Dade. The facility has never been closed.