Roaches tumbling out of an oven among South Florida’s worst restaurant filth
Standing water and no water join the usual roaches and rodents among violations that shut down 10 restaurants from Miami-Dade to Palm Beach.
Our Sick and Shut Down List just reports the results of state inspections — we don’t do the inspecting. To file a complaint about a restaurant, go to the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation website.
Restaurants are allowed to reopen after passing a callback inspection, the first of which usually is held the following day.
In alphabetical order:
Al’s Coffee Shop, 2101 Ponce de Leon, Coral Gables
Routine inspection, 23 total violations, three High Priority violations.
We told you last week that handwashing and cleanliness violations got this coffee shop inside a Coral Gables commercial building closed for a day.
MORE: See some of the 23 inspection violations that closed a Coral Gables restaurant
The Dutch Pot Jamaican Restaurant, 4095 N. Haverhill Rd., West Palm Beach
Routine inspection, three total violations, three High Priority violations
Roaches: Six live ones crawled on a kitchen wall behind a prep table.
Hands: “An employee handled soiled dishes while washing and rinsing, then handled clean/sanitized dishes ... without washing hands.”
Fresh & Wild Fish, 838 W. Hallandale Beach Blvd., Hallandale Beach
Routine inspection, seven total violations, three High Priority violations
Seven flies kept landing on the wall next to the employee handwash sink next to a kitchen prep area.
In that same prep area, 10 roaches had a meeting under a prep table while another two roaches met under another kitchen prep table.
A container and cutting board blocked use of a kitchen handwash sink, and the handwash sink in the food prep/dishwashing area wasn’t there to use. The inspection said it “must be reinstalled in the same location.”
Kanto Asian Street Food, 720 Lake Ave., Lake Worth Beach
Routine inspection, eight total violations, one High Priority violation
There were eight live roaches around the kitchen, but if you’re looking for an upside, only one was on a clean dish.
The chest freezer door rim was lined with an “accumulation of food debris.”
Tongs still in use sat on the oven door handle.
READ MORE: Publix and Walmart sell newest recalled food in deadly listeria outbreak
MV Take Out Restaurant, 386 SE Second Ave., Delray Beach
Routine inspection, eight total violations, three High Priority violations
This might be the place to take your food bland: “Approximately 20 rodent droppings in the spices storage container in the kitchen.”
Another 30 pieces of rodent poop on a shelf under a kitchen prep table.
Next to all that territory marking were eight dead roaches and two live roaches.
The handwash sink didn’t have paper towels.
Sabor Latino, 1500 Gateway Blvd., Boynton Beach
Routine inspection, five total violations, four High Priority violations
Five live roaches dotted the kitchen floor at the cookline while one went solo in front of the ice machine.
On the cookline, the “wood morsel used for plantains was grooved with food debris stuck inside” and “not cleanable.”
White rice stored in a deep-covered container, preventing proper cooling, measured 49 degrees. It needed to be 41 or below. Stop Sale. And trashed.
Sak Pase, 18900 SW 114th Ave., South Miami-Dade
Routine inspection, 37 violations, six High Priority violations
The inspector “observed an employee wipe sweat from the forehead and proceed to prep food without washing hands and changing gloves.”
Food was stored in dirty containers in the walk-in freezer. That freezer, as well as the reach-in cooler and walk-in cooler, had door handles described as “soiled.”
Food in the walk-in cooler, reach-in cooler and reach-in freezer weren’t covered.
A “soiled” can opener sat on the kitchen prep table.
The “entire kitchen and ware wash area” floors were “soiled.” Meanwhile, standing water created a water hazard inside the walk-in cooler and under the three-compartment sink.
Four live roaches skedaddled under a kitchen reach-in freezer while another two meandered around the cookline.
Along with food not being properly covered, items also weren’t properly cooled to prevent bacteria after a night in the coolers. Stop Sales showered on plantains, pork belly, chicken, goat, cabbage, turkey and beef.
Upon re-inspection, the inspector saw food in the walk-in freezer still was stored in “dirty containers” and “the entire floor of the kitchen area” was “soiled.” That word also was applied to the reach-in cooler, walk-in cooler and walk-in freezer gaskets, as well as the baffle curtains in the walk-in cooler.
And one roach crawled across the kitchen floor.
Toa Toa Chinese Restaurant, 4145 NW 88th Ave., Sunrise
Complaint inspection, five total violations, three High Priority violations
Two flies? Problem.
Zero running water? Shut-down problem.
“Establishment operating with no potable running water.”
Which means “no running water at the three-compartment sink” and “no running water at the mop sink.”
When someone is handling pork inside a food container, they were “unable to wash hands due to no potable water in establishment.”
They were back in business two days later.
Walters Coffee Shop by Sergio, 17009 S. Dixie Hwy., Palmetto Bay
Routine inspection, 31 total violations, four High Priority violations
“Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine/bin.”
The dining area air conditioning vents wore enough dust to be a violation.
More than 25 roaches were inside an oven on the front cookline. “When the oven door was opened roaches fell to the floor and started crawling all over the kitchen floor,” the inspector wrote.
“A live roach crawled inside the drawer of the reach-in cooler where food is stored. The reach-in cooler is under the grill in the cookline area...”
The inspector also saw “a live roach crawling inside clean utensils under the preparation table in the kitchen area and another live roach in dry storage under the sugar container.”
Cutting boards that couldn’t be cleaned were at the front counter and kitchen area.
That’s the same kitchen area with a “floor covered with standing water.”
Water leaked under the three-compartment sink.
“A knife was stored inside a soiled container with old debris at the front counter.”
Cooked potatoes in the walk-in cooler weren’t covered.
Roaches were among the reasons Walter’s failed three re-inspections before passing one Thursday.
Y & O Peruvian Food, 20500 S. Dixie Hwy., Cutler Bay
Routine inspection, 38 total violations, five High Priority violations
Water damage marred the ceiling tiles in the kitchen and dry storage areas.
But the real problem wasn’t water overhead; it was water underfoot, as in “wastewater backing up through the floor drain by the food preparation table in the kitchen, in front of the walk-in cooler and next to the handwash sink.” Also, “wastewater backing up through the floor drain by the mop sink by the dry storage.”
This led to an “odor at the kitchen area once the water sewage backed up from the floor.”
The front area and kitchen area handwash sinks were “soiled with a mold-like substance.”
The reach-in cooler door gaskets, the oven, hood filters and vents needed cleaning.
The three-juice dispenser up front was dirty enough to be noted.
“Three clean knives were stored on a dirty prep table.”
Clean pots in a dirty drawer? Not a good fit, either.
No soap at a handwash sink.
And the reach-in cooler across from the kitchen stove was as useless as wet Kleenex, as Stop Sales crashed down on chicken, shrimp, cut tomatoes and potatoes made earlier that day but still between 50 and 54 degrees when they should’ve been at or under 41.
