Rodents return to a mall food court, and other Miami to Palm Beach restaurant issues
Rodents returned to a South Florida mall food court that was also infested in September, accounting for 5 of the 10 restaurants on this week’s inspection list.
Our “Sick and Shut Down List” of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach restaurants that failed state inspection comes from Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspections. We don’t choose who gets inspected or how strictly. Direct all restaurant complaints to the agency.
Each restaurant re-opened after passing re-inspection the next day unless noted otherwise.
In alphabetical order:
Alegria by El Rancharito, 8383 NW 12th St., Doral: Routine inspection, 28 total violations, six High Priority violations.
Earlier this week, we detailed Alegria’s problems with blender flies and sanitizing things off which people eat and from which people drink.
READ MORE: Flies in a blender and dishes not sanitized at a Miami restaurant, inspection says
Big Crazy Taco or El Gran Taco Loco, 436 N. Krome Ave., Homestead: Routine inspection, 43 total violations, six High Priority violations.
Ah, the old favorite: “accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine/bin.”
The steam table contained three dead roaches. One lay underneath. Did he get whacked by the five live roaches under there? One roach died on the wall near the stove and just stayed there. Maybe he was looking for his pal, who was strolling on the wall.
And then there were “seven dead flies in the kitchen near the reach-in cooler.”
Inspectors observed a roach crawling on wall in kitchen and five roaches crawling on floor under steam table in the kitchen.
All the cutting boards in the kitchen had “cut marks and are no longer cleanable.”
The vape device on a food-handling table in the dining area counted as “evidence of an employee smoking in a food preparation, food storage or warewashing area.”
The reach-in cooler had no chill. Or, rather, not enough chill because all this food measured above 41 degrees and got tossed for temperature abuse: cheese, cut tomato, sausage, chicken, rice, beans, green sauce and beef.
A handwash sink was blocked by a ladder near the kitchen entrance. But that really didn’t matter because that handwash sink, like all the other handwash sinks, didn’t have any soap or paper towels.
La Palapa Restaurant & Seafood Grill, 3820 NW 36th St., Hialeah: Routine inspection, 29 total violations, eight High Priority violations.
As Gen Xers and older millennials might recall, this used to be an IHOP that got a lot of business each night around the time a nearby airport-area strip bar closed.
Now, it had four knives shoved between the wall and the three-compartment sink were “in-use knife/knives stored in cracks between pieces of equipment.”
“No screen at the bar gates by the door on the outside patio” means free run into the restaurant for vermin.
And what vermin they had.
Up on the second floor storage area, the inspector saw over 15 dead centipedes, six dead roaches, and a live rodent. That’s probably the rodent that left rub marks on the floor under single-service items, over 20 pieces of poo behind them and 15 pieces behind the air conditioning unit.
No surprise, the carpet and walls of the second floor storage room were “heavily soiled” and there were “multiple holes in the wall.” Everything but a skeleton with skis up there.
Two dead roaches were behind a kitchen stairwell “where containers of salt, rice and beans are stored.”
Seven flies were in the kitchen near the prep area. One landed on dough in the prep area. Stop Sale on the dough.
You’d think with all that in there, they’d at least be careful to sanitize the dishes. Alas, the chlorine sanitizer measured zero parts per million.
But the wet wiping cloth solution measured above the maximum concentration allowed.
The inspector saw an employee move a trash can, then immediately start food prep without washing his hands.
Tacos Al Carbon, 5380 10th Ave. N, Greenacres: Complaint inspection, 16 total violations, 12 High Priority violations.
A live spider on a cutting board. A dead roach on the floor in front of a grill. Six roaches crawling on the floor by the cookline.
The reach-in cooler had food old enough to have spider webs. Salsa, beef soup and seafood soup had been in there 8 to 12 days.
“Sewage/wastewater backing up through sinks.” When they turned on the cookline’s handwash sink, “the floor drain backs up. Also, the area cannot be isolated from staff walking by.”
Neither that handwash sink nor any other was used by the employee who came from outside and then “touched clean equipment without washing hands.”
“Several metal pans were washed with only soap and water, not sanitized.”
Tossed into the garbage from three coolers for not being at or under 41 degrees were cheese, french fries, cooked beef, cooked pork, cooked shrimp, cooked chorizo, sour cream, cooked rice, cooked beans. Trashed for not being kept above 135 degrees was beef stock.
Three roaches crawling behind the worthless reach in coolers ruined the first re-inspection. Tacos Al Carbon passed the second re-inspection.
Taj Mahal Indian Cuisine, 4778 Okeechobee Rd., West Palm Beach: Routine inspection, 11 total violations, six High Priority violations.
In the kitchen, an “employee washed hands with no soap.”
Roaches ran happily under the dishwashing machine (six); on bowls and lids in the prep area (two); on a cooler (two); under a prep sink (two) and under the three-compartment sink (two). The dead lay on top of the dishwasher (five); in a corner behind the dishwasher (six) and along the base boards (40).
Were the reach-in coolers on some kind of strike? Yet another place they didn’t do their job, causing Stop Sales to shower down on cooked lamb, cooked chicken, cut tomatoes, onion sauce, tomato gravy, sauteed onions and coconut milk.
The Mall at Wellington Green
In September, nine places at The Mall at Wellington Green food court failed inspection in one week, eight of them because inspectors found rodent droppings.
READ MORE: Chick-Fil-A, Sbarro among 8 restaurants with 309 rodent droppings in a South Florida mall
The rodents returned last week to the mall at 10300 Forest Hill Blvd. A statement from mall General Manager Asad Sadiq emailed to the Miami Herald on Thursday said:
“The safety of our guests and employees is our highest priority. Upon notification of these infractions, we ensured these tenants took immediate steps to remedy the situation. ... We will continue to require that our tenants follow safety standards and protocols to provide a safe and welcoming environment for all The Mall at Wellington Green patrons.”
Here is a rundown of each place cited:
▪ The Madres
A dozen dead roaches were in two traps “by the dry storage/dishwashing area, near single service items and containers of food.”
In the same area, an inspector saw “approximately 25 rodent droppings on the floor near single service items, food and cleaned dishes.”
▪ Mediterranean Plate
On Nov. 5, there were “10 rodent droppings in the corner between sections of the wall at the back end of kitchen, near a walk-in cooler” and about “five droppings on a rat trap under a prep table where various food items are stored on a shelf” under the table.
The next day, Nov. 6, the inspector returned to find four rodent droppings in the aforementioned corner, one on a metal rack in a corner and one under the cash register at the front counter.
A Nov. 6, re-re-inspection was needed for Mediterranean Plate to get serving again.
▪ Popeye’s
The inspector saw about 12 rodent dung dots under the oven and a reach-in cooler, five under a kitchen prep table and one on a soda box next to the steam table.
▪ Sbarro
Rodents do love the pizza places and these left 30 pieces of rodent regularity around this food court staple, by the inspector’s Nov. 5 count.
Ten poo pieces were on a dry storage shelf, on top of open boxes with single service cups, steam table pans and aluminum pans. Four were inside a dough container on that same dry storage shelf. Five were under a kitchen dry storage area. Two were under an oven near the front counter.
When the inspector returned Nov. 6, the count was down to three — two at the front counter, one under a dry storage shelf beside a dough mixer in the kitchen. — but that was still enough for a second failure.
Sbarro passed the third inspection.
▪ Yeung’s Lotus Express
Yeung’s managed to strike out four times, although the roaches took the baton from the rodents after the second inspection.
Nov. 5: About 10 pieces of rodent dung were behind a rice storage container next to the kitchen rice cookers. Two were on the lid of a container with food. Eight dotted the area under an oven. Six were beside a handwash station. Five were under a dry storage area “where various food items are stored in the kitchen.”
As for the roaches, six live ones were counted beside rice cookers and three were “crawling down the leg of an oven” in the same area.
Nov. 6: Perhaps Pixie and Dixie got a little constipated — one rodent berry at the front counter between a reach-in cooler and prep table.
Of the eight live roaches, one was in a kitchen rice cooker pot.
Nov. 7: Three live roaches, two of which the manager killed.
Nov. 8: Four roaches hanging out on the kitchen cookline.
Yeung’s finally got back open with a second inspection, fifth overall, on Nov. 8.
This story was originally published November 15, 2024 at 8:18 AM.
