CORAL GABLES, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors walked into TAP 42 on Giralda Avenue and found shellfish on the menu with no identification records to trace them back to their source, meaning that if a customer got sick from a bad oyster or clam, there would be no paper trail to find where it came from.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented on April 17. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The April 17 inspection produced a list that covered nearly every stage of food handling. Inspectors cited staff for improper handwashing technique, meaning employees were going through the motions of washing their hands without removing pathogens effectively. Food was found in poor condition or mislabeled.
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for food not cooked to the required minimum internal temperature. That violation sits alongside the finding that TAP 42 was not using time as a public health control properly, a system that, when followed, allows certain foods to sit outside refrigeration for a defined window before being discarded.
The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked items. Toxic substances were improperly identified, stored, or used. A single intermediate violation for improper wiping cloth use rounded out the inspection report.
What These Violations Mean
The shellfish traceability failure is the one that regulators treat as a worst-case scenario. When oysters, clams, or mussels arrive without proper shell stock identification tags and records, there is no way to trace a product back to its harvest location or date if customers begin reporting illness. That chain of evidence is how health officials identify and shut down a contaminated harvest bed before more people are exposed. Without it, an outbreak investigation starts from nothing.
The undercooking violation compounds that risk. Pathogens including Salmonella survive in poultry cooked below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. In shellfish, Vibrio bacteria, which can cause severe gastrointestinal illness or worse in people with liver disease or compromised immune systems, are neutralized by sufficient heat. Finding both a shellfish traceability failure and an undercooking violation in the same inspection creates a situation where the food could carry pathogens and the records to investigate any resulting illness do not exist.
The missing consumer advisory sharpens the concern for specific customers. State food code requires restaurants serving raw or undercooked items to disclose that risk on the menu, precisely so that elderly diners, pregnant women, young children, and people with weakened immune systems can make an informed decision. TAP 42 was not providing that disclosure in April.
The toxic substance violation is a separate category of danger. Chemicals stored or used improperly near food preparation surfaces can contaminate food directly, and unlike bacterial contamination, chemical contamination is not addressed by cooking.
The Longer Record
The April 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. TAP 42 has accumulated 294 violations across 29 inspections on record, a figure that works out to more than 10 violations per inspection on average.
The pattern of high-severity violations is consistent going back years. In March 2025, inspectors found 8 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. In December 2024, the tally was 8 high-severity and 3 intermediate. In October 2025, a follow-up inspection still produced 7 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate citations, nearly identical to the April 2026 count.
The only inspection in recent years that came back relatively clean was October 10, 2025, which produced just one high-severity violation. One week earlier, on October 2, 2025, the same location had produced 7 high-severity violations.
TAP 42 has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history on record. Every inspection that found multiple high-severity violations, including the April 17, 2026 visit, ended with the restaurant remaining open and serving customers.
The Longer Pattern
What the record shows is not a restaurant that slipped once or hit a rough stretch. The April 2026 inspection is the fifth time in roughly 18 months that TAP 42 has generated 7 or more high-severity violations in a single visit.
The specific violations have shifted somewhat from inspection to inspection, but the severity level has not. Temperature control, food condition, and procedural failures appear across multiple years of records.
After the April 17 inspection, TAP 42 on Giralda Avenue remained open.