A Miami-Dade restaurant has 42 violations and rodent poop on a shelf with plates is one

The rodent droppings numbered close to 100, the handwash sink water couldn’t get close to 100 (degrees) and those are just two of the reasons another North Miami Beach restaurant failed inspection last week.

Le Genie and its 42 violations (eight High Priority violations) joined Cafe Maza and rodent-riddled, three-time failure CY Chinese Restaurant as NMB restaurants closed by state inspection. All sit along the city’s main east-west artery, Northeast 163rd Street-167th Street, with Le Genie at 176-178 NE 167th St.

Le Genie staff claimed management wasn’t in Wednesday afternoon when a Herald reporter visited.

Here’s some of what the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspector found on the first visit, Feb. 26.

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▪ That Sick and Shut Down List staple violation leads off, “Accumulation of black/green mold-like substance in the interior of the ice machine/bin.”

▪ The rodents did their business all over the restaurant. “Approximately 10-plus droppings on shelves where plates are stored.” “Approximately 25-plus rodent droppings on top of the seasoning shelf in the kitchen.”

Another 15-plus were in each of these areas: by the dishwasher; in dry storage; and behind a front counter reach-in cooler. More than 10 were under the cookline. More than eight were by the handwashing sink.

This also earned the violation, “Clean plates and clean utensils stored on a soiled shelf.”

▪After rodent waste, the next thing most often dropped were Stop Sale orders on unsafe food. Either someone forgot to turn on the walk-in cooler or it’s more useless than wet Kleenex because food that needed to be kept at 41 degrees or under was barely cooler than room temperature: cooked beef and cooked vegetables (each 64 degrees); crab mix (68 degrees); saltfish (60 degrees); tomato sauce (63 degrees); and raw shell eggs (59 degrees).

Stop Sales also hit a dented can of coconut milk and raw snapper in the walk-in cooler. The snapper counted as “food/ice received from an unapproved source with no invoice provided to verify the source.”

▪ “Water with a temperature of at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit was not provided at the employee handwash sink.” Running the water for two minutes got it up to 75 degrees or room temperature.

▪ Then again, there wasn’t any soap or way to dry hands at the kitchen handwash sink, so that’s a hat trick of not getting it done at the kitchen handwash sink.

▪ “Accumulation of debris inside warewashing machine” and “Accumulation of debris outside the warewashing machine.” Consistency is underrated.

▪ “Bathroom floors not in good condition...both bathrooms soiled.”

▪ “Water damage on the ceiling tiles throughout the kitchen.”

▪ “Standing water on the floor under the handwash sink and ice machine.”

▪ “Raw fish stored on the floor in the walk-in cooler.” Well, the rodents seemed to like heights and shelves.

▪ Holes in the wall at the front counter and next to the dishwasher.

▪ The dumpster lid was open. The inspection didn’t specify which dumpster, but Wednesday, two dumpsters were open in the parking lot not far from the front door.

▪ The walls behind the cookline, dishwasher machine, handwash sink, and three-compartment sink were heavily soiled.

▪ After failing a re-inspection on more than 23 rodent droppings, Le Genie passed a second re-inspection on Feb. 28 well enough to re-open.