MIAMI, FL. When a state inspector walked into Salmon & Salmon Restaurant at 2907 NW 7th Street on September 30, the food on the line could not be traced to any approved or verified source. That single fact, buried in a six-violation inspection report, means that if a customer got sick, no one could trace the food back to where it came from.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
All six violations documented during the September 30 visit were classified as high severity. Not one was intermediate or basic.
The food sourcing citation is among the most serious an inspector can write. Food arriving from unapproved or unknown suppliers has bypassed USDA and FDA safety inspections entirely, meaning there is no documentation of where it was processed, how it was handled, or whether it was tested for contamination.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food preparation areas. That is a direct contamination pathway, not a paperwork problem.
Inspectors also cited food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that touch food directly, as not properly cleaned or sanitized. Employees were observed using improper hand-washing technique. And no person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties at the time of the visit.
The sixth violation: no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items. At a restaurant whose name is the word "salmon" repeated twice, that omission is notable.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation carries a specific danger that distinguishes it from most other citations. When food enters a kitchen from an unapproved source, there is no chain of custody. If a customer develops a Salmonella or Listeria infection after eating there, investigators cannot trace the product back to a supplier, a processing facility, or a contamination event. The outbreak investigation stops at the restaurant's back door.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces compound that risk. Bacteria transferred from one food item to a cutting board, and then to the next item prepared on that surface, is one of the most documented transmission routes in foodborne illness cases. At Salmon & Salmon, both the sourcing problem and the surface sanitation problem existed in the same kitchen on the same day.
Improper hand-washing technique is not the same as skipping hand-washing. An employee who goes through the motions without scrubbing long enough, or without reaching between fingers and up the wrists, can transfer pathogens even after a visible attempt to wash. Studies have documented that technique failures account for a significant share of hand-to-food contamination events.
The missing consumer advisory matters most for a specific group of customers: pregnant women, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system. A restaurant serving raw or undercooked seafood is required to disclose that risk on the menu. Without that notice, a customer who would have ordered differently never gets the choice.
The Longer Record
September 30 was not an unusual day at Salmon & Salmon. It was a continuation of a pattern that state records show stretching back years.
The restaurant has been inspected 31 times, with 225 total violations on record. The six high-severity violations logged on September 30 match exactly the six high-severity violations documented on August 27, 2025, just 13 months earlier. That prior visit also produced two intermediate violations on top of the six high-severity ones.
The pattern does not show a restaurant that had a bad week. In January 2025, inspectors found four high-severity violations. In November 2024, two separate visits on the same day produced three high-severity violations on one report and one high-severity violation on the other. In April 2024, a visit found five high-severity violations, followed the next day by a clean inspection with zero violations, followed seven months later by another cluster of high-severity citations.
The two clean inspections in the record, both in September and April of 2024, stand out as exceptions against a backdrop of repeated high-severity findings. The facility has never been emergency-closed in its 31 inspections on record.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented six high-severity violations at Salmon & Salmon on September 30, 2026. They included food of unknown origin, improperly stored toxic chemicals, unsanitary food contact surfaces, flawed hand-washing, no supervisory presence, and no disclosure to customers about the risks of raw seafood.
The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
It was the second time in 13 months that inspectors had recorded exactly six high-severity violations at the same address. Both times, the doors stayed open.
