Rodent feces found in a Mexican restaurant dining room and in a buffet eatery’s storage room were among the issues that triggered temporary shutdowns at two South Florida restaurants last week.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel typically 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,” such as improper food temperatures or dead cockroaches.
Sun Sentinel readers can browse full Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade county reports through our state inspection map, updated weekly (usually Mondays) with fresh data pulled from the Florida DBPR website.
Any restaurant that fails a state inspection must stay closed until it passes a follow-up. If you spotted a possible violation and wish to file a complaint, contact Florida DBPR here. (But please don’t contact us: The Sun Sentinel doesn’t inspect restaurants.)
King Super Buffet, West Palm Beach
4270 Okeechobee Blvd.
Ordered shut: Oct. 12; reopened Oct. 13
Why: 16 violations (five high-priority), including 15 rodent droppings “in the dry storage room under the shelves near dining room,” which the operator later sanitized.
Inspectors also spotted three “dead insects by the back doors next to walk-in #2 and #1.” Finally, the state red-flagged multiple sanitation issues, including a “black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine,” kitchen floors soiled with “heavy grease under all cooking equipment,” the water heater covered with an “accumulation of grease and food debris,” reach-in cooler shelves with “soil residues,” and “grease, food debris and mold-like growth” on a wall in the food storage area. The buffet was allowed to reopen after its second inspection on Oct. 13 yielded one basic violation. The restaurant was previously ordered shut on June 29 and May 31 for roach and fly infestations.
La Condesa Mexican Restaurant, Boca Raton
3320 Airport Road
Ordered shut: Oct. 10; reopened Oct. 11
Why: Four violations (two high-priority), such as 15 rodent droppings “under equipment in bar in dining room” and in the kitchen “under equipment on expo line” near the cook line.
The restaurant was also dinged for storing a “bucket of sour mix” on the floor of the bar, and was asked to move it onto shelves instead. The restaurant was cleared to reopen the following day after the state’s reinspection found a single intermediate violation.
