South Florida Sun Sentinel
May 03, 2021 2:23 PM
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Sun Sentinel Restaurant Inspections
Swarms of live flies on fried calamari and leaking urinal water inside a men’s bathroom forced state inspectors to temporarily shut two South Florida restaurants last week.
These pesky insects – plus one employee’s unwashed hands – touched clean dishes of cooked food at Divino Ceviche in Miami. A Burger King in West Palm Beach also had live and dead flies in the kitchen, dining room and food prep area.
Broward County, however, remained well-behaved, with zero restaurant kitchens ordered shut last week for major violations.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel highlights restaurant inspections from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Here’s how it works: 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. On occasion we may highlight the weirder violations we notice, like this pizzeria that put a dead 80-pound iguana in its freezer.
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.)
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Why: Inspectors spotted seven violations (two high-priority), including a “urinal leaking water on the floor in the men’s bathroom,” 15 dead flies on the dining-room windowsills and 39 live flies “in kitchen, food preparation area, food storage area and/or bar area.” Burger King was allowed to reopen April 30 when inspectors in a follow-up inspection found zero violations.
Why: 16 violations (four high-priority), including at least 69 live and dead flies in the kitchen, food prep areas and on clean dishes of “pasta and fried calamari, plate of seafood mix, and a plate of fried corvina and potatoes.” Inspectors saw that one “employee handled soiled dishes and placed in dirty bin, then touched clean plated food.” The state also ordered Divina to stop selling diced cheese, cooked eggs and cooked white rice for improper food temperatures. Facility allowed to fully reopen April 30 when inspectors found zero follow-up issues.
