MIAMI, FL. A restaurant in North Miami Beach racked up 12 high-severity violations in a single state inspection last week, the highest single-facility count in a tri-county sweep that flagged 97 high-severity violations across 15 South Florida restaurants between July 26 and August 1, 2026.
The Worst of the Week
Le Genie Restaurant at 178 NE 167th Street in North Miami Beach drew the week's most alarming single-facility report. Inspectors cited the restaurant for having no employee health policy, no mechanism for workers to report illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing facilities, improper handwashing technique, and inadequate shell stock identification records, among eight other high-severity findings.
Three of those violations connect directly to each other. No written health policy means sick workers have no formal obligation to stay home. No reporting mechanism means symptomatic employees can remain on the line. And inadequate handwashing facilities mean that even workers who want to wash their hands properly cannot do so.
Inspectors also found food in poor condition at Le Genie, and cited the restaurant for a person in charge not present or not performing duties. That combination, a missing manager and a kitchen operating without the basic hygiene infrastructure in place, is what state records show as the setup for a multi-violation cascade.
Seabra Bakery and Cafe at 465-475 NE Spanish River Boulevard in Boca Raton logged the second-highest count this week: 10 high-severity violations. Among them were food from an unapproved or unknown source, inadequate shell stock identification, food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, and no mechanism for employees to report illness symptoms.
The food-from-unapproved-source citation at Seabra is notable. Boca Raton's Spanish River corridor draws heavy foot traffic from residents and tourists alike, and a bakery-cafe format typically means high-volume, fast-turnover service. When the origin of food cannot be verified, there is no supply chain to trace if a customer gets sick.
Nova Fresh Kitchen at 625 NE Spanish River Boulevard, Suite 101, sits just down the same road from Seabra. Inspectors cited it for nine high-severity violations, including food from an unapproved source, food in poor condition, inadequate shell stock identification, and time as a public health control not properly used. Two Boca Raton restaurants on the same boulevard, both flagged for unverifiable food sourcing and shellfish traceability failures, in the same inspection week.
Miami-Dade: Ten Facilities, a Consistent Pattern
Miami-Dade accounted for 10 of the 15 flagged facilities this week. The violations were not evenly distributed, and the patterns across facilities were not random.
Sano Food Hialeah at 3300 West 84th Street in Hialeah drew nine high-severity citations, including no person in charge, no employee health policy, no illness symptom reporting, inadequate handwashing by employees, inadequate handwashing facilities, and food not cooked to the required minimum temperature. That is the full handwashing failure chain: no policy, no infrastructure, and improper practice all cited at the same facility.
Atelier Bea at 5451 NW 72nd Avenue in Miami also drew nine high-severity violations. Inspectors found food contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazards, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, and inadequate shell stock identification. A contamination-by-chemical citation alongside improperly sanitized food contact surfaces in the same inspection is a compounding finding.
Bianco Cafe Bistro Inc at 8190 SW 8th Street, Suite 101, drew eight high-severity violations. Inspectors cited the restaurant for both toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. That is two separate chemical storage violations in a single visit, alongside no person in charge, inadequate handwashing, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods.
Burgers Smash and Fries at 47 NE 2nd Avenue in Miami drew eight high-severity violations, including no person in charge, no employee health policy, inadequate handwashing facilities, and food not cooked to the required minimum temperature. For a burger concept, an undercooked food citation carries particular weight. Ground beef must reach 155 degrees Fahrenheit internally to kill E. coli O157:H7.
Tastigo Kitchen at 2770 SW 27th Avenue drew eight high-severity violations. Inspectors found food from an unapproved source, inadequate shell stock identification, time as a public health control not properly used, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and two separate chemical storage citations. That is three distinct categories of risk, sourcing, temperature management, and chemical safety, flagged at the same facility in a single visit.
Sang's Chinese Food at 1925 NE 163rd Street in North Miami Beach drew six high-severity violations, including food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and inadequate cooling equipment as an intermediate violation. A restaurant serving food that may be undercooked, without telling customers it might be undercooked, and without the equipment to keep cold food cold, is operating with overlapping temperature failures.
Good Chef Restaurant at 11459 SW 40th Street in Miami drew three high-severity violations: food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled.
Ichimi at 12310 SW 127th Avenue drew two high-severity violations: food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled.
Broward County
Broward's three flagged facilities this week ranged from two violations to eight.
Tien Tien Chinese Food at 9975 Miramar Parkway drew eight high-severity violations, including food in poor condition, inadequate shell stock identification, food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, time as a public health control not properly used, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. Inspectors also cited employees for failing to report illness symptoms and for improper handwashing technique.
Dumpling King at 1221 N University Drive in Coral Springs drew two high-severity violations: food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Both violations point to the same gap. The restaurant is serving food that may not reach safe internal temperatures, and customers are not being told.
Rocca Trattoria Italian at 2014 E Sample Road in Lighthouse Point drew two high-severity violations: food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. Inspectors also cited the restaurant for improper sanitizing solution concentration and single-use items being reused.
What These Violations Mean
The handwashing cluster this week deserves direct attention. Le Genie, Sano Food Hialeah, Bianco Cafe Bistro, and Burgers Smash and Fries were all cited for inadequate handwashing facilities, meaning the physical infrastructure for proper hygiene was missing or insufficient. At Le Genie and Sano Food, inspectors also found employees not washing their hands correctly and no health policy requiring sick workers to stay home. These three failures compound each other: a worker who is ill, in a kitchen with no policy requiring them to report it, at a sink that cannot support proper handwashing, is the documented precondition for a norovirus outbreak. The CDC estimates norovirus alone causes 19 to 21 million illnesses annually in the United States.
The food-from-unapproved-source citations at Seabra Bakery, Nova Fresh Kitchen, and Tastigo Kitchen carry a specific traceability consequence. When food enters a restaurant from outside the licensed supply chain, there is no lot number, no distributor record, and no path back to the source if a customer reports illness. Inspectors cannot pull a recall notice for food that was never in the system.
Shellfish traceability failures appeared at six facilities this week: Le Genie, Seabra Bakery, Nova Fresh Kitchen, Sano Food Hialeah, Atelier Bea, Tien Tien Chinese Food, and Tastigo Kitchen. Oysters, clams, and mussels are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked, and they filter large volumes of water, concentrating whatever pathogens or toxins are present. Without the required shell stock tags and receiving records, there is no way to know where those shellfish came from or whether a harvest area was under a health advisory when the product was pulled.
The Longer Record
The data does not include prior inspection counts for the facilities in this week's report, which limits direct historical comparison. What the violation totals alone show is that several of these restaurants are not experiencing isolated bad days. A facility like Le Genie, cited for 12 high-severity violations including the complete absence of a written illness policy and no functioning handwashing infrastructure, is describing a kitchen that was not built around food safety practices. Those are not violations that appear because an employee forgot something on a Tuesday morning.
The two Boca Raton facilities on the same boulevard, Seabra Bakery and Nova Fresh Kitchen, each drew citations for food from unapproved sources and inadequate shellfish records in the same inspection week. Whether that reflects shared suppliers, shared practices, or coincidence, the records do not say. What they do show is that Palm Beach County's two flagged facilities this week both failed on sourcing traceability, the category with the least margin for error when an illness investigation begins.
Tien Tien Chinese Food in Miramar drew eight high-severity violations, including both a time-as-public-health-control failure and a food-in-poor-condition citation. Those two findings together suggest a kitchen managing food temperature through elapsed time rather than refrigeration, and doing it improperly. Tien Tien was the highest-violation facility in Broward County this week, and its citation list covers four distinct risk categories: illness reporting, handwashing, food condition and temperature, and chemical storage.
