South Florida Sun Sentinel
Feb 28, 2022 2:44 PM
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Sun Sentinel Restaurant Inspections
Live flies landed on onions, cockroaches crawled on kitchen floor mats and raw sewage seeped into the kitchen at four South Florida restaurants temporarily ordered shut last week by state inspectors.
The restaurants forced to close were La Granja in North Miami Beach, McKenna’s Place in Palm Springs, Bistro 1001 inside the Marriott West Palm Beach hotel and a Church’s Chicken in Miami.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel highlights restaurant inspections in Broward and Palm Beach counties from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. We cull through hundreds of restaurant and bar inspections that happen weekly and spotlight places ordered shut for “high-priority violations,” like improper food temperatures or dead cockroaches.
Sun Sentinel readers can browse full Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade county reports on our state inspection map, updated weekly (usually Monday) with fresh data pulled from the Florida DBPR website.
Any restaurant that fails inspections must stay closed until it passes a follow-up state inspection. If you spotted a possible violation and wish to file a complaint, contact Florida DBPR here. (But don’t contact us: The Sun Sentinel doesn’t inspect restaurants.)
La Granja, North Miami Beach
Ordered shut: Feb. 23, reopened Feb. 24
Why: 15 violations (six high priority), led by 24 “live flies on top of rotten vegetable debris” sitting beneath a reach-in cooler, “on top of the onions” located in a container on the kitchen storage shelf, and landing on the rear kitchen walls. The state next spotted two live cockroaches crawling “between the plastic panel and the wall located in the back area of the kitchen,” and on the wall in the storage room. Inspectors also red-flagged multiple unsanitary issues, including “in-use tongs stored on [stove handle] between uses,” a hole in the wall next to a customer bathroom, and a package of raw chicken sitting on the floor of the walk-in cooler. The state let the chain restaurant reopen Feb. 24 after discovering a pair of minor problems.
McKenna’s Place, Palm Springs
Ordered shut: Feb. 23 and Feb. 24, reopened Feb. 24
Why: Inspectors found 11 violations (two high priority), such as five live flies “flying around the beer keg handles” inside the kitchen, and six live cockroaches crawling “between the holes of the [floor] mat” on the kitchen cook line and between “the gaskets of the reach-in cooler” in the kitchen. Inspectors also spotted seven dead roaches in the same areas, as well as between the ice machine and reach-in freezer. They also found seven dead “insects, rodents, or other pests” trapped inside pest-control devices, along with “objectionable odors in the kitchen, prep area and bar.” The state closed the restaurant again Feb. 24 after its second inspection revealed more cockroaches, but finally let McKenna’s reopen Feb. 24 after finding a handful of minor issues.
Bistro 1001, West Palm Beach
1001 Okeechobee Blvd. (inside Marriott West Palm Beach hotel)
Ordered shut: Feb. 22 and Feb. 23, reopened Feb. 23
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Why: Five violations (two high priority), including 19 live cockroaches “coming from underneath one of the reach-in coolers on the [kitchen’s] cook line,” from inside the reach-in-cooler near the ovens, and crawling near the server station. Inspectors also spotted four dead roaches “around the reach-in coolers at the bar.” Even more live roaches prompted inspectors to close 1001 Bistro again on Feb. 23, but the hotel restaurant reopened Feb. 23 once a third inspection found no new issues.
Ordered shut: Feb. 22, reopened Feb. 23
Why: Nine violations (two high priority), led by this unsanitary mess: “raw sewage on ground,” seeping into the kitchen’s prep area through a “heavily soiled,” grease-covered floor drain. Inspectors also found “sewage/wastewaster” backing up through sinks in the restroom, as well as “sewage water in the parking lot.” The state’s second inspection on Feb. 23 found more sewage backups, but let the fast-food restaurant reopen.
