HIALEAH GARDENS, FL. Inspectors visiting Rey's Pizza at 8790 NW 122nd Street on July 10 found the restaurant operating with food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that state health officials classify as one of the most serious a food establishment can accumulate, because it means no one can trace where the food came from if customers get sick.
That was one of nine high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector's report also documented that food was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures. For a pizza restaurant, that means poultry or meat toppings that could be harboring Salmonella were potentially reaching customers without the heat treatment that kills it.
Three separate violations pointed to a kitchen operating without meaningful oversight of employee health. The restaurant had no written employee health policy, employees were not reporting illness symptoms, and the person in charge was either absent or not performing supervisory duties. Those three conditions, together, describe a workplace where a sick employee could handle food for an entire shift with no mechanism to stop it.
Inspectors also found improper handwashing technique, food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and multi-use utensils that had not been adequately cleaned. The sewage or wastewater disposal system was flagged as improperly managed, an intermediate violation that introduces fecal contamination risk throughout the facility.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, meaning customers had no way of knowing they were eating anything that carried elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is the one with the longest tail. When a restaurant purchases food from an unapproved or unknown supplier, that food has bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections. If a customer becomes ill, investigators have no supply chain to trace. The food could be carrying Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli, and there would be no way to identify the source or pull it from other locations.
The cooking temperature violation compounds that risk directly. Food that arrives from an unverified source and is then served undercooked has cleared none of the safety checks the system depends on.
The cluster of employee health violations is its own category of concern. Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads through food handled by sick workers. A facility with no health policy, no symptom-reporting system, and no active manager present has no layer of protection against that transmission route. CDC data shows establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with engaged management on-site.
The sewage disposal citation adds a separate contamination pathway. Improper wastewater handling can introduce fecal matter to surfaces throughout a kitchen, and that contamination is invisible without testing.
The Longer Record
The July 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Rey's Pizza has been inspected 23 times and has accumulated 226 total violations across its history, with zero emergency closures.
The pattern in the high-severity column is consistent. The October 2025 inspection produced 10 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. The September 2024 inspection produced 9 high-severity violations. In 2022, inspectors visited twice, finding 7 high-severity violations each time. The July 2021 visit produced 6 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations.
Every inspection on record going back to at least 2021 has produced at least 4 high-severity violations. The count has never dropped to zero.
The violations documented in July 2026 are not a new low. They are a continuation of a record that has shown the same categories of serious failures, visit after visit, across multiple years.
Open for Business
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. The threshold typically includes active pest infestations, sewage backup, or conditions that inspectors determine cannot be corrected while the restaurant continues to serve customers.
After documenting 9 high-severity violations at Rey's Pizza on July 10, including unapproved food sources, undercooked food, no employee illness reporting, improper sewage disposal, and unsanitary food contact surfaces, inspectors did not issue an emergency closure order.
Rey's Pizza remained open.
