HIALEAH, FL. Food served at a Hialeah Brazilian grill on July 14 came from unapproved or unknown sources, meaning it had bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely, and the restaurant remained open after inspectors left.
State records show that Porto Alegre Brazilian Grill Restaurant at 795 E 8th Avenue accumulated nine high-severity violations and five intermediate violations during that single inspection. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation did not order an emergency closure.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the one that gives inspectors the least room to work backward. When food arrives from an unapproved or unknown supplier, there is no chain of records to follow if a customer gets sick. No lot number, no distributor, no recall path.
Inspectors also documented that employees were not reporting illness symptoms, that the restaurant had no written employee health policy, and that handwashing technique was improper. Those three violations together describe a kitchen where sick workers could have been preparing food without anyone, including management, having a formal obligation to stop them.
Parasite destruction procedures were not being followed. For a Brazilian grill where fish and pork are staples, that means parasites including Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork can survive to the plate if cooking temperatures or freezing protocols are not met.
No person in charge was present or performing duties during the inspection. Inspectors also found that the restaurant was not using time as a public health control correctly, meaning food was allowed to sit in the temperature danger zone between 41 and 135 degrees without proper tracking. Food contact surfaces had not been properly cleaned or sanitized. And there was no consumer advisory posted to warn elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised diners that raw or undercooked items carry additional risk.
On the intermediate side, inspectors cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils that had not been properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy, employees not reporting symptoms, and improper handwashing technique is what public health officials describe as a direct transmission route for Norovirus. Norovirus causes an estimated 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, and a single sick food worker who does not report symptoms and does not wash hands properly can expose dozens of customers in a single shift.
The parasite destruction violation carries a different but equally concrete risk. Proper parasite destruction for fish requires freezing to specific temperatures for specific durations before serving. Without documentation that this step occurred at Porto Alegre Brazilian Grill, any fish served that day could have carried live parasites including Anisakis, which causes gastrointestinal illness and, in severe cases, requires surgical removal.
The food from unapproved sources violation means inspectors could not verify where at least some of the food in that kitchen originated. If a customer became ill after eating there on July 14, traceback investigators would have no supplier records to follow.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and reused single-use items compound every other risk in the kitchen. Bacterial biofilms form on surfaces within 24 hours and resist standard cleaning once established.
The Longer Record
Porto Alegre Brazilian Grill has been inspected 34 times and has accumulated 317 total violations across its history. It has never been emergency-closed.
The July 14 inspection was not an outlier. On October 6, 2025, inspectors cited the restaurant for nine high-severity violations and four intermediate violations, an almost identical profile to this month's findings. That visit was followed by a callback inspection on October 7, 2025, which showed zero high-severity violations, suggesting the restaurant can correct problems quickly when required to do so.
The pattern repeats. On August 5, 2024, inspectors found five high-severity and two intermediate violations. A follow-up on August 12, 2024, showed zero violations in either category. The restaurant passed a clean inspection on April 30, 2025, and on February 11, 2025, logged only two high-severity violations.
What the record shows is a facility that cleans up for callbacks and then returns to serious violations at the next routine inspection. The July 14 visit produced nine high-severity violations. The follow-up inspection on July 15, one day later, showed one high-severity and two intermediate violations.
The restaurant has never been ordered closed in 34 inspections. After the July 14 visit, it remained open.
