MIAMI, FL. Inspectors cited La Bodega Restaurant on SW 88th Street and Crafty Crab Cajun Seafood Restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard with 11 high-severity violations each during the week of April 21, 2026, the highest totals among 15 South Florida facilities flagged for three or more serious citations in a single week.
Fourteen of those facilities were in Miami-Dade County. One, Grace Restaurant on West Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach, was in Broward. No facilities with three or more high-severity violations were recorded in Palm Beach County during this period.
The Worst of the Week
La Bodega's 11 violations included no person in charge present, no written employee health policy, employees not reporting illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing facilities, improper handwashing technique, food from an unapproved or unknown source, food in poor condition or adulterated, and inadequate shell stock identification records. That combination, management absent, sick workers with no reporting obligation, and seafood with no traceability documents, represents nearly every category inspectors flag as outbreak precursors.
Crafty Crab drew the identical violation count with a nearly identical list: no person in charge, no employee health policy, employees not reporting symptoms, inadequate handwashing by food employees, improper handwashing technique, food from an unapproved source, inadequate shell stock records, and improperly sanitized food contact surfaces. Crafty Crab is a seafood boil chain, and the shell stock records violation is particularly significant at a restaurant where oysters, clams, and mussels are central menu items.
Candies Cabaret on NW 36th Street in Miami drew 10 high-severity violations, including food from an unapproved source, food in poor condition, food not cooked to required minimum temperature, and improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, in addition to the same cluster of management and handwashing failures.
Sports Grill Miami Lakes on NW 77th Court also reached 10 high-severity violations, with no intermediate violations at all. The citation list included inadequate handwashing facilities, improper technique, time as a public health control not properly used, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, alongside the management and illness-reporting failures.
The Violations Spread Across Miami-Dade
Miami Lakes, a planned community in northwest Miami-Dade, produced three of the week's flagged facilities within a short stretch of NW 77th Court. Sports Grill Miami Lakes and King & I Thai Restaurant at 15508 NW 77th Court sit steps apart. Sushi Bombs at 15480 NW 77th Court rounds out the cluster. King & I drew 9 high-severity violations, including food not cooked to required minimum temperature, shell stock records failures, and food in poor condition. Sushi Bombs drew 8, including food from an unapproved source, shell stock records failures, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and improperly sanitized food contact surfaces.
On Miami Beach's Collins Avenue, a tourist corridor, New Campo Argentino at 6954 Collins Ave drew 9 high-severity violations. The list included food from an unapproved source, parasite destruction procedures not followed, food not cooked to required minimum temperature, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and improperly stored toxic chemicals. The parasite destruction citation is specific to raw fish service and signals that fish served without proper freezing or cooking protocols may carry Anisakis or tapeworm.
In Coral Gables, Globe Cafe & Bar at 377 Alhambra Circle drew 9 high-severity violations, including inadequate handwashing, food in poor condition, shell stock records failures, food not cooked to required minimum temperature, time as a public health control not properly used, no consumer advisory, and improperly stored toxic chemicals.
Paseo Catracho on SW 8th Street in Miami drew 9 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate ones, the highest intermediate count of any facility this week. Violations included food from an unapproved source, shell stock records failures, no consumer advisory, and improperly stored toxic chemicals, in addition to the management and handwashing cluster.
Palenque Restaurant 5 on Palm Avenue in Hialeah drew 8 high-severity violations, including food not cooked to required minimum temperature, time as a public health control not properly used, and required procedures for specialized processes not followed. That last citation applies to cooking methods such as smoking, curing, or reduced-oxygen packaging, which require written protocols approved in advance.
Ming Yuan Restaurant on NW 2nd Avenue in Miami drew 4 high-severity violations, two of them involving toxic chemicals, one for improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, and one for no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods.
Grace Restaurant in Pompano Beach drew 3 high-severity violations: food in poor condition, improperly sanitized food contact surfaces, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. It was the only Broward County facility in this week's data.
Barbeque Stop Company on NW 23rd Street, El Gallito Grill on SW 8th Avenue, and Lo D'Alex on SW 8th Street each drew fewer than 3 high-severity violations but appeared in the week's data with food contact surface and single-use item violations.
What These Violations Mean
The most common cluster this week, appearing at La Bodega, Crafty Crab, Candies Cabaret, Sports Grill Miami Lakes, King & I Thai, Sushi Bombs, and Paseo Catracho, was the combination of no person in charge, no employee health policy, and employees not reporting illness symptoms. These three violations compound each other. When no manager is present, no one is enforcing the rules. When there is no written health policy, workers have no documented obligation to report symptoms. When workers do not report symptoms, someone with active Norovirus or Salmonella continues handling food. Norovirus can be transmitted by fewer than 20 viral particles, and a single sick food worker has been documented as the origin of outbreaks affecting dozens of customers.
Shell stock identification failures appeared at Crafty Crab, La Bodega, King & I Thai, Sushi Bombs, Paseo Catracho, Globe Cafe & Bar, and Palenque Restaurant 5. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are high-risk because they are often consumed raw or barely cooked. The identification tags that accompany each harvest batch are the only mechanism by which a health department can trace an oyster-linked illness back to a specific harvest bed and pull that product from circulation. Without those records, a Vibrio or hepatitis A outbreak linked to shellfish at any of these restaurants becomes nearly impossible to investigate.
The food from unapproved source violation, cited at La Bodega, Crafty Crab, Candies Cabaret, New Campo Argentino, Sushi Bombs, and Paseo Catracho, is distinct from food quality violations. It does not mean the food looked bad. It means the food arrived through a supply chain that bypasses USDA and FDA inspection, so there is no documentation of where it came from, under what conditions it was processed, or whether it was tested. If a customer became ill, inspectors would have no starting point.
Toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, cited at Ming Yuan, New Campo Argentino, Sushi Bombs, Paseo Catracho, and Globe Cafe & Bar, represents an acute risk that is separate from the bacterial contamination most people associate with restaurant inspections. Cleaning chemicals stored near or above food preparation surfaces can contaminate food directly if they spill or are mistakenly used. Unlabeled containers are a documented cause of chemical poisoning incidents in commercial kitchens.
The Longer Record
The data does not include prior inspection counts for these facilities, which limits a direct comparison of chronic versus new violators. What the violation lists do reveal is which facilities have accumulated the broadest and most structurally serious citation profiles in a single week. La Bodega's 11 violations span every major category, management oversight, employee illness controls, food sourcing, food condition, and shellfish traceability, suggesting failures distributed across the entire operation rather than concentrated in one area.
The Miami Lakes cluster is notable because three facilities on or near the same block, Sports Grill Miami Lakes, King & I Thai Restaurant, and Sushi Bombs, all drew significant high-severity violation counts in the same week. That concentration in a single commercial corridor is the kind of pattern that warrants attention beyond any individual restaurant.
New Campo Argentino's location on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach places it in one of the highest-traffic tourist corridors in South Florida. The parasite destruction failure, combined with no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, means customers ordering raw fish preparations had no documented protection from either the kitchen's process or an advisory on the menu.
Globe Cafe & Bar on Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables drew 9 high-severity violations with only one intermediate citation, a profile that suggests serious operational failures rather than a broad accumulation of minor paperwork issues. Food not cooked to minimum temperature and time as a public health control not properly used, cited together, means food was both undercooked and left in the bacterial growth range without a documented tracking system.