A South Florida inspection roundup – including ants in honey and a fly-heavy kitchen – is a reminder that every Miami restaurant’s record is public, free and searchable in about two minutes
Short Answer
Florida publishes every restaurant inspection report online for free. Before you book or walk into a Miami restaurant, search the establishment by name at the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) public inspection portal. You will see the inspection date, the number and type of violations, and whether the restaurant met standards, received a warning, or was temporarily closed. A recent Miami Herald roundup of South Florida’s roughest inspection visits – citing issues such as ants in honey, a large volume of flies, and a La Carreta location – is a useful prompt to use that tool, not a reason to avoid Miami’s dining scene.
What You Need to Know
- Inspections are unannounced. State inspectors arrive without notice, so a report is a snapshot of one specific day – not a permanent grade.
- Florida does not use letter grades. Unlike New York or Los Angeles, Florida restaurants do not post an A/B/C placard. The full written report is the record.
- Violations are tiered. Reports separate high-priority violations (directly tied to foodborne illness risk, such as improper holding temperatures or live pests) from intermediate and basic violations (maintenance, cleanliness, documentation).
- An emergency closure is not permanent. When a restaurant is ordered shut, it reopens only after a callback inspection confirms the issues were corrected – often within a day or two.
- Chain name shared record. Each physical location is licensed and inspected separately. One franchise location’s report says nothing about another’s.
- Where to search: the DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants public search at myfloridalicense.com. Search by business name, street, city or county (Miami-Dade).
Location or Neighborhood
The Miami Herald roundup covers South Florida broadly – Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Inspection records are available for every licensed food service establishment across Greater Miami, including Miami Beach, Downtown Miami, Brickell, Little Havana, Wynwood, Coral Gables, Hialeah, Doral, Coconut Grove, Little Haiti, Design District, Key Biscayne, Homestead and the beachfront corridors in Sunny Isles and Surfside.
Date, Time and Price
- Source published: October 9, 2026 (Miami Herald)
- Cost to check a restaurant: Free
- Time required: Roughly 1-2 minutes per restaurant
- Access: 24/7, mobile-friendly, no account or login required
- Coverage: Licensed restaurants, bars serving food, hotel food service, catering operations and mobile food dispensing vehicles
Main Article
The Miami Herald periodically publishes a roundup of the week’s most striking South Florida restaurant inspection findings. The latest installment flagged problems including ants in honey, a count of 115 flies at one establishment, and an inspection at a location of La Carreta, the long-running Cuban restaurant group that is a staple for both locals and first-time visitors to Miami.
For a traveler planning a week of eating across Miami, these headlines can land harder than they should. Here is the context that makes them useful rather than alarming.
Miami-Dade has one of the densest restaurant markets in the country
Greater Miami supports thousands of licensed food service establishments, from ventanitas and loncheras to oceanfront fine dining. With that volume and a subtropical climate that is genuinely hospitable to insects year-round, a steady stream of pest-related and temperature-related violations is statistically expected. The relevant question for a visitor is not “did this restaurant ever get written up” – most busy kitchens have – but “what was the violation, how serious was it, and was it corr
Disclaimer: This content is AI-generated and intended for informational purposes only. It is based on public sources and should be verified against official listings and visitor information.