MIAMI, FL. A state inspector walked into Totoritas Restaurant at 7367 NW 36 St on September 25 and documented food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food, and a complete absence of any employee health policy, then left the restaurant open.
The inspection produced 11 high-severity violations and 2 intermediate violations. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation did not order an emergency closure.
What Inspectors Found
The undercooked food violation and the toxic chemical storage failure appeared on the same inspection report. So did two separate handwashing violations: inspectors cited both inadequate handwashing and improper handwashing technique, meaning employees were not washing their hands at all in some instances and washing them incorrectly in others.
There was no written employee health policy in place. Employees were not reporting illness symptoms. The inspector also cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification records, which means that if a customer got sick from shellfish served that day, tracing the source would be difficult or impossible.
The person in charge was either not present or not performing required oversight duties. State research links that failure directly to higher rates of the kind of violations documented in the same report.
What These Violations Mean
The food temperature violation is one of the most direct risks on the list. Undercooking allows pathogens like Salmonella in poultry to survive and reach a customer's plate. Salmonella survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit, and a single contaminated serving can cause severe illness.
The two handwashing violations compound that risk. Improper handwashing is the single most significant factor in spreading foodborne illness, and the inspector found both that employees were not washing adequately and that their technique, when they did wash, was wrong. Pathogens remain on hands even when a washing attempt is made incorrectly.
The toxic chemical violation adds a separate and acute risk. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food can contaminate a meal directly, and mislabeled containers have caused acute poisoning when workers mistake a chemical for a food ingredient.
The shell stock identification failure is its own category of concern. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are high-risk foods often consumed raw or lightly cooked. Without proper identification records, there is no way to trace the origin of a contaminated batch if customers become ill after eating them at Totoritas.
The Longer Record
The September 25 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Totoritas has been inspected 35 times and has accumulated 518 total violations across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The eight most recent inspections before September 25 all produced high-severity violations, ranging from a low of 1 high-severity finding in January 2024 to a high of 9 high-severity violations in both February 2025 and a September 2024 visit. The pattern does not show improvement.
A follow-up inspection on October 6, 2026, eleven days after the September 25 visit, produced 6 more high-severity violations and 1 intermediate violation. The problems documented in September had not been fully resolved.
The restaurant has never been closed in 35 inspections. It has logged high-severity violations in every inspection year reflected in the available records, across categories including food temperatures, employee health practices, and food contact surface sanitation.
The Longer Record in Numbers
Across the eight most recent prior inspections, Totoritas produced a combined 49 high-severity violations and 26 intermediate violations before the September 25 inspection even took place. The violations have spanned food sourcing, handwashing, temperature control, and management oversight, with no single inspection showing a clean bill of health.
The 518 total violations across 35 inspections works out to nearly 15 violations per inspection on average. The September 25 visit, with 13 total violations, was close to that average. For this restaurant, 11 high-severity findings in a single inspection was not a dramatic departure from its documented history.
State inspectors returned on October 6 and found 6 high-severity violations still present. Totoritas remained open.
