Kitty litter and mold on food among the 35 violations found at a Miami-Dade restaurant
READ MORE
Miami-Dade’s Wretched Restaurant Row
Eight restaurants along Northwest 167th Street/Northeast 163rd Street, from just west of North Miami Beach through the heart of the city, have failed state inspection, usually quite spectacularly since December 2023.
Expand All
Moldy fruit, standing water and several other food safety violations earned yet another North Miami Beach restaurant a failing state inspection score last week.
Just off North Miami Beach’s Wretched Restaurant Row, where five restaurants have failed inspection in the last seven months, sits Jennifer’s Cafeteria on the corner of Northeast 164th Street and 16th Avenue.
A shower of 35 violations, seven of which were High Priority, shut down Jennifer’s on Thursday. That list of food safety shortcomings includes the following:
READ MORE: Rodents living in Quaker oatmeal and gnawing into dog food at a Jetro Restaurant Depot
“One orange in the display rack at the front counter was moldy.” That got a Stop Sale.
Another Stop Sale got dropped on cooked tripe (stomach lining) for still being at 49 degrees, at least 8 degrees too warm, after spending the night in the reach-in cooler.
Then again, Jennifer’s had “no probe thermometer provided to measure the temperature of food products,” which is a food safety basic.
About 10 flies swarmed the kitchen, seven flies at the front counter “laying on the centerpieces,” and two flies hung around the orange juice machine.
The ice scoop was “missing a handle in the ice,” which means the hand guiding the scoop is touching the ice.
There was no soap or paper towels at the restroom handwash sink and no handwash sink in the warewashing area.
That restroom also didn’t have “tight-fitting, self-closing doors.”
READ MORE: Rodents and roaches at Domino’s, IHOP and other Miami metro restaurants
There weren’t any drainboards “for soiled items and/or air drying cleaned items” at the three-compartment sink.
Standing water covered the kitchen floor and the bottom of two reach-in coolers.
The door handles on the kitchen reach-in coolers were “soiled.”
“Observed single service items — to go containers, napkins and paper towels — on the floor.”
“Non food-grade bags used in direct contact with food” as in “raw chicken stored in the reach-in freezer touching a Thank You bag.”
“Food mixture in the kitchen stored on top of the prep table with food debris.”
The back kitchen door had “a gap underneath.”
Perhaps the reason that gap didn’t lead to rodents promenading into the restaurant was the cat that kept coming in the area “where restaurant food and single service items are being stored. Observed cat litter, cat bed and cat food around the location.”
Though the manager put the cat out, “cat continues to come inside” when the back exit door was open.
This story was originally published August 20, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
