Metro Miami restaurant fails include flies at BK and Pollo, movie concession roaches
We’ve had Burger Kings, Pollo Tropicals and live rodents on the Sick and Shut Down List, but we’ve never had a mall movie house’s concession stand.
We have now. So, let’s get to it.
THE RULES BY WHICH WE PLAY: What follows comes from Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation restaurant inspections of restaurants in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties. These are the restaurants that fail inspection. A restaurant that fails inspection remains closed until passing a re-inspection.
We don’t do the inspections. We don’t control who gets inspected. We don’t control how strictly the inspector inspects. If restaurants in your part of South Florida are not included, we have nothing to do with that. If you see a problem and want a place inspected, contact the DBPR.
We don’t include all violations, just the most moving, whether internally or literally moving (because it’s alive or once was alive). Some violations get corrected immediately after the inspector points them out. But in those situations, ask yourself, why did the violations exist in the first place? And, how long would they have remained if not for the inspection?
We report without passion or prejudice, but with more than a soupçon of humor, indignation and exasperation.
In alphabetical order...
Burger King, 14820 Griffin Rd., Davie: Routine inspection, two total violations, one High Priority violation.
Eight flies landing on dining room tables. Another eight landing on a bag with ready-to-eat bread. Two flies landing on a prep table. Oh, and there were the 25 flies landing on onions in a bin.
Those and the six other flies were enough for the inspector to close this BK Lounge for the day.
You could have it your way again after re-inspection the next day.
Le Berger Restaurant, 1216 S. Dixie Hwy., Lake Worth Beach: Routine inspection, 17 total violations, six High Priority violations.
Standing water covered an unsealed kitchen concrete floor with cracks. Forget cooking and eating, that’ll take the fun out of breathing soon.
Standing water in a bucket held thawing pork. Standing water in the three-compartment sink housed thawing chicken. That’s a violation because it can lead to your customers being ill into the standing water in a toilet.
Speaking of dangerous food, Stop Sales rained on goat, chicken and cooked sauce that still wasn’t under 41 degrees despite spending the night in an apparently worthless cooler. Of course, being stored in large containers didn’t help the cooling process. The cut cabbage in a dining room cooler suffered the same fate for the same reason.
Even though the three live roaches near clean kitchen equipment, over and under a kitchen prep table, that wasn’t as bothersome as “one live mouse in a hallway.” The mouse escaped capture by darting into a storage room in a dining room hallway.
Even if the inspector hadn’t seen Jerry, the furry vermin (and probably some unseen friends) decorated his territory with 10 pieces of regularity in front of a kitchen cooler, 20 in that hallway storage room; 30 in front of a kitchen freezer unit; and 20 on a kitchen shelf over a handwashing sink.
After all that rodent regularity, you’ll be forgiven any side eyes cast upon reading, “passed re-inspection the next day.”
Palm Beach Diner, 610 S. Dixie Hwy., Lantana: Complaint inspection, 10 total violations, two High Priority violations.
This reappearance qualifies the Palm Beach Diner as a Sick and Shut Down List recidivist. Instead of just failing at basic cleaning, this time, they failed at limiting their living guests to two-legged mammals with opposable thumbs.
READ MORE: Rodents in an Anthony’s. Roaches in salt. A Denny’s. Palm Beach Diner. Restaurant filth
In a reminder of last week’s , the inspector saw a hole between the three-compartment sink and dishwasher created by something that “gnawed through the wall insulation. Particles on the floor from wall insulation.”
BANG! “Rodent droppings from hole along the wall to the dish machine.”
They left 40 poop pellets under the dish machine and sink, over 15 in the pre-cleaning sink next to the dishwasher and 10 on top of the dishwasher.
As for the dishwasher, it wasn’t sanitizing anything. Also, inside, it was “soiled with food debris, mold-like substance or slime.” The owner said it would be removed.
The diner passed re-inspection the next day. Love to know the name of the exterminator.
Pollo Tropical, 4713 S. Flamingo Rd., Cooper City: Routine inspection, four total violations, two High Priority violations.
Somebody attach a feather duster to a broomstick and clean the “vent and ceiling tiles with dust and food debris.”
A cook “grabbed a clean container” and opened the ice machine door after handling raw chicken and without washing hands.
Like the other chain on this list with South Florida roots, this Pollo had a fly problem. In the women’s restroom, 10 flies landed on the wall. In the dining area, seven flies zipped about. In the mens’ room, 55 flies clogged the air and were “landing on rice on the floor.” What, was someone having a wedding in there?
Pollo was back Tropichopping after passing re-inspection the next day.
Silverspot Cinema at Coconut Creek at the Promenade at Coconut Creek, 4441 Lyons Rd., Coconut Creek: Routine inspection, seven total violations, one High Priority violations.
The Sick and Shut Down List’s first mall movie theater concession stand didn’t have soap in the dispenser at the handwash sink on the cookline, but did have six live roaches in that soap dispenser.
“After the operator cleaned and sanitized (the dispenser), observed three live roaches inside of soap dispenser at handwash sink in ware washing/cookline area,” the inspector said. “Operator removed. Observed two live roaches inside of safety data sheets binder located above handwash sink.”
About 20 dead roaches sat in a roach-killing device under the warewashing machine.
Guess the roaches had their fill of Barbie because Silverspot passed re-inspection the next day.
Sunny Food Plus, food truck, 587 NE 164th Terr., Northeast Miami-Dade: Routine inspection, 17 total violations, three High Priority violations.
Behind the food truck, someone prepared veggies outside “no walls at all. Two portable burners and a preparation table underneath a torn tent and a BBQ grill outside.”
There’s not much room in a food truck, so even if 10 live roaches and five dead roaches are seen under the three-compartment sink, three live and eight dead are seen on top of it and one roach under a stove, it’s all in the food space.
“Establishment operating with no potable running water. Observed a tank with water with an open/close valve to wash dishes and hands on top of the three-compartment sink.” Yeah, that’s not getting it done.
No online record says the food truck passing re-inspection. Then again, being a food truck, maybe Sunny Food Plus moved locations and the inspector can’t find it.
This story was originally published August 31, 2023 at 5:09 PM.
