Maggots on decaying rodents, gnawed bags of food at Miami restaurant supplier
Dead rodents crawling with maggot coupled with other evidence of an “active rodent infestation” led to food being thrown out after state inspection of a Medley restaurant’s food and equipment supplier.
And this isn’t anything new at the Restaurant Depot, at 8850 NW 77th Ct., as Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspector Raymond Collada made clear in the inspection.
“Management has not demonstrated they are qualified to perform their assigned duties as evidenced by the serious sanitation observations noted during the inspection conducted on Oct. 8, 2025 to include presence of active rodent infestation, which is also a repeated violation from Dec. 13, 2022,” Collada wrote.
READ MORE: Rodent, bird poop ruin tons of salt, sugar at Restaurant Depot, ‘Where Restaurants Shop’
Restaurant Depot assistant manager Ricardo Gutierez signed Wednesday’s inspection. When a Miami Herald reporter tried to reach a manager by phone Sunday, someone who refused to identify himself returned the call and said, “The necessary steps have been taken” to deal with the rodent issue.
Collada also conducted that December 2022 inspection, which shouldn’t be confused with the August 2024 rodent issues at Miami-Dade’s other Restaurant Depot location, near the Jackson Hospital-Courthouse area in Miami.
READ MORE: Rodents living in Quaker oatmeal and gnawing into dog food at a Miami food wholesaler
Following the December 2022 inspection, Inspector Collada passed the Medley Restaurant Depot on its Jan. 6, 2023 re-inspection and a July 11, 2023 inspection. The location passed a Feb. 29, 2024 check by Inspector Manuel Uribe.
READ MORE: Roaches in pasta, dead rodent among South Florida’s worst restaurant inspections
Perhaps most surprising about the Wednesday inspection in Medley was that Collada didn’t put Stop Use Orders on any areas of the facility. FDACS inspectors don’t possess the power to shut down a facility like state restaurant inspectors, but Stop Use Orders on equipment and areas can make operations difficult and unprofitable, thus encouraging the establishment to crush the problem.
All areas remain open until the re-inspection, which will occur on or before Oct. 22. But Collada did have to use a few Stop Sale Orders on food.
Along a wall before the entrance to the dry storage area were “two dead decaying rodents with maggots and one dead rodent (stuck) coming out of the rodent bait station.”
A shelf in front of the door held “several gnawed bags of pistachios. Rodent droppings were found on the same shelf as pistachios and corn husks. The shelf liner is constructed from cardboard that has stains which appear to be urine stains.”
Stop Sales came down on 20 3-pound pbacks of Setton Farms pistachios and one 60-pound pack of Pepitos Chilitos corn husks.
A pallet with batteries also had rodent droppings.
In the refrigerated seafood area, “the ice maker’s ice chute was found with mold growth present along the chute frame.”
Also, in the seafood department, “the salted fish held in the retail area was not covered to protect against being contaminated.”
Frozen, vacuum-packed fish should be removed from packing before thawing. Otherwise, the fish could turn into bacteria breeding grounds. Alas, Collada saw vacuum-packed tuna and corvina thawing while still in the packaging.
“The air blower unit between the pork and seafood areas was dripping condensation directly onto two pallets of packaged cheese.”
Pasteurized crab meat, which should be held at or below 38 degrees for proper food safety, measured 45 degrees. Additionally, “monitoring records for the same storage unit from Sept. 27 through Oct. 6 showed it to be measuring between 47 degrees and up to 50 degrees” and “no corrective actions were implemented.”
A 60-pound pack and a 96-pound pack of Phillips pasteurized crab meat got hit with Stop Sale orders.
This story was originally published October 12, 2025 at 11:09 AM.
