Inspectors saw roaches on a meat grinder and slicer at a Miami Palacio de los Jugos
An El Palacio de los Jugos with a history of vermin in food got shut down last week by inspectors who found roaches on food contact surfaces.
The 5721 W. Flagler St. location of the popular Miami chain has been open since passing re-inspection July 18.
Back in August 2021, a roach inside a rice container helped get this same Palacios de los Jugos fail an inspection. Perhaps even stranger than the roach inside the rice was that the inspector didn’t order the rice into the garbage by hitting it with a Stop Sale.
The July 17 inspection also included roaches in one place and Stop Sale orders in another.
El Palacio de Los Jugos, 5721 W. Flagler St., Miami: Routine inspection, 18 total violations, six High Priority violations.
A rusted can of tomato paste and a rusted can of Alfredo sauce (how long were they there?) got slapped with Stop Sale orders.
A handwash sink in the production kitchen didn’t have soap, which makes it a hand rinsing sink.
Also in the production kitchen, the cutting board, vegetable slicer, and can opener blade were “soiled.” So was the slicer in the main kitchen.
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But you want to talk about production kitchen and slicer problems, let’s start talking roaches. One live was seen crawling on a knife holder and prep table. One moseyed on a slicer next to the meat grinder. On the meat grinder itself, four live roaches were having anything but a hard day’s night.
A fly was seen “resting on the mixer, juice/sandwich station. Another was seen “resting on the prep table.” Two more landed on a cutting board. Inspectors counted 11 other flies throughout the El Palacios.
READ MORE: Roaches and filth in Miami Beach and Palm Beach restaurants
In the juice and sandwich station, the bottom shelf of the stand-up reach-in cooler had an “accumulation of soil residues.”
Also “soiled with grease, food debris, dirt, slime or dust” were the hoods in the sandwich station and the production kitchen.
