MIAMI, FL. State inspectors visiting Shahs of Kabob at 2624 Ponce de Leon Blvd on April 28, 2026 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning some of what was served that day had bypassed every federal safety inspection designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli before it reaches a customer's plate.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification and records. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are consumed raw or only lightly cooked at many restaurants. The tagging and record-keeping system that tracks where those shellfish came from is the only mechanism regulators have to trace an outbreak back to a contaminated harvest bed. Without those records, that chain breaks entirely.
A third high-severity violation noted that no consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised rely on those warnings to make informed decisions about what they order.
The required procedures for specialized food processes were also found not to be followed. Techniques like smoking, curing, or reduced-oxygen packaging require precise controls because they can create conditions where dangerous bacteria multiply if the process is not executed correctly. The inspectors found those controls absent.
Rounding out the high-severity violations: no written employee health policy and inadequate handwashing facilities. Those two citations together describe a kitchen where a sick employee has no formal obligation to stay home, and where the physical infrastructure to wash hands properly was not in place even if someone tried.
Three intermediate violations accompanied the six high-severity findings. Inspectors documented improper sewage or wastewater disposal, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The food-sourcing violation is the one that removes the safety net entirely. USDA and FDA inspections exist to catch contamination before product reaches a restaurant. Food from an unapproved or unknown source has skipped that process. If a customer becomes ill, investigators following the supply chain back to the source will hit a wall.
The shellfish records violation compounds that problem specifically for raw seafood. Health departments investigating a shellfish-linked outbreak need harvest location tags and dealer records to identify a contaminated bed and pull product from other restaurants. Shahs of Kabob's records were inadequate to support that process.
The sewage disposal violation is the most viscerally alarming intermediate citation. Improper handling of wastewater in a food-preparation environment creates a direct pathway for fecal contamination to reach food surfaces, equipment, and hands. Combined with the finding that handwashing facilities were inadequate, the April 28 inspection described a facility where contamination had multiple routes in and fewer physical barriers stopping it.
The absence of an employee health policy means there is no written requirement for workers to report illness, stay home when symptomatic, or be excluded from food handling if they have a diagnosed illness like Norovirus or Salmonella. Norovirus alone accounts for roughly 20 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States each year, and direct transmission from a sick food worker is one of its most common vectors.
The Longer Record
April 28 was not an anomaly. State records show 23 inspections on file for this address, with 227 total violations accumulated across that history.
The facility has never been emergency-closed. It passed two inspections cleanly, one in June 2024 and one in April 2021, but those have been exceptions in a record that otherwise shows persistent high-severity citations.
The six months before this inspection were not encouraging. In October 2025, inspectors found four high-severity and two intermediate violations. In April 2025, the tally was three high-severity and four intermediate. In November 2024, three high-severity and three intermediate. The April 2026 inspection, with six high-severity violations, is the worst single-visit count in the available history.
The food-sourcing and shellfish-traceability violations are particularly notable because they are not the kind of citation that results from a momentary lapse, a cracked tile, or a forgotten thermometer. They reflect decisions about where food comes from and whether records are kept. Those decisions are made before service begins.
The Pattern
Across eight prior inspections with available violation data, Shahs of Kabob drew high-severity citations in six of them. The two clean inspections are separated by years of findings that include the same categories of concern, food sourcing, process controls, and hygiene infrastructure, that appeared again on April 28.
The restaurant has 227 violations on record across 23 inspections. That is an average of nearly ten violations per visit over its documented history.
After the April 28 inspection, with six high-severity violations and three intermediate citations on the books, Shahs of Kabob at 2624 Ponce de Leon Blvd remained open for business.