A Miami restaurant’s inspector found rodent droppings, a useless cat and bad odors
Usually, the only furry, four-legged animals referred to by a state restaurant inspector come from the order Rodentia. But last week’s inspection of a North Miami Beach restaurant also included a member of the feline family — useless as he was illegal.
That’s in addition to the funky fish tank and other olfactory violations throughout CY Chinese Restaurant Szechuan Cuisine, 1242 NE 163rd St.
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A complaint filed with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation brought an inspector to CY on Tuesday and the inspection shows seven High Priority violations among 27 total violations.
Here’s a partial listing of those violations.
▪ “Objectionable odors in bathroom or other areas of the establishment.” Where? “By the fish tank, by the kitchen exit door, inside the kitchen and in the the dining area.”
▪ Speaking and smelling of the fish tank, another violation came from “murky water from the fish tank with a foul odor draining into a dirty container.”
▪ There’s more work for the Roto-Rooter Man from “a pipe draining water from the refrigeration unit through the wall of the walk-in freezer into a bucket by the handwashing sink.”
▪ The reach-in cooler gaskets and a can opener were “soiled.” The kitchen hood had “accumulated grease.”
▪ If there’s a hole in the wall by the dry storage area (and there was), there’s no surprise that there will be pieces of rodent dung in the restaurant (and there were 81 of them).
By the front counter, over 15 droppings were on lower shelves, another six under the fish tank and four inside the bucket under the fish tank. The kitchen rodents relieved themselves under shelves with sauce packets (five droppings), between the reach-in coolers (four), in front of the walk-in freezer (one) and under the dishwasher (15).
Dry storage had more than 20 poo pieces on the floor “under containers with rice and flour.” In the women’s restroom, there were two droppings in the bigger stall and one on the floor under the handwash sink. The men’s room had a rodent dropping on the floor of the handwashing sink.
▪ These rodents didn’t care that there was a “live cat in the dining area resting on the floor,” a cat who had a bed on a kitchen chair and cat food in dry storage. The inspector cared, not because the cat apparently was worse at catching mice than Tom was at catching Jerry, but because it’s a High Priority violation.
“Inspector asked operator to remove live cat from the establishment,” the inspection said. “Observed the operator remove the cat inside the cage. Observed cat carrying case by the mop sink outside. The exit door was left open. The cat walked inside the kitchen, and operator removed the cat again.”
The inspector told the restaurant, get the cat out of there and if seen again on a future inspection, there will be major problems.
▪ When the inspector returned Tuesday, there were two flies in the kitchen and three by equipment storage. There were also over 20 pieces of rodent regularity in the kitchen behind the reach-in cooler; over 20 at the server station; over 20 in the equipment storage room; and five on the lower shelves of the server station.
CY got it all right on its third inspection to reopen Thursday.
This story was originally published December 11, 2023 at 1:50 PM.
