DAVENPORT, FL. State inspectors ordered the Wendy's at 44304 US 27 in Davenport closed on September 8, 2026, after documenting roach activity inside the restaurant, an emergency shutdown that marks the second forced closure in this location's inspection history.
The closure order took effect the same day inspectors arrived. Records show the restaurant was allowed to reopen later that afternoon, at 3:39 p.m.
What Inspectors Found
Wendy's 595 — Recent Inspection History
The September 8 inspection that triggered the closure produced three high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. Roach activity was the finding that prompted inspectors to pull the emergency closure order.
A follow-up inspection the same day found two intermediate violations still on record, but no high-severity violations remained. That cleared the threshold for reopening.
A subsequent inspection on September 24 found one additional high-severity violation, this one for food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized. That violation, separate from the roach finding, indicates that not all compliance issues were resolved when the restaurant first reopened.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity inside a food service facility is one of the conditions Florida inspectors treat as grounds for immediate emergency closure, and for specific reasons. Live roaches move freely between sewage, garbage, and food preparation surfaces, carrying bacteria including Salmonella and E. coli on their bodies and depositing them wherever they travel. A customer eating food prepared on a surface a roach has crossed has no way of knowing the contact occurred.
Emergency closure authority exists precisely because pest activity is not a violation that can be corrected mid-service. The kitchen cannot be sanitized and the roaches cannot be exterminated while customers are being served.
The high-severity violation cited at the September 24 follow-up inspection adds a second layer of concern. Improperly cleaned or sanitized food contact surfaces, the cutting boards, prep tables, and equipment that touch food directly, are one of the most direct routes for bacterial cross-contamination in a commercial kitchen. When surfaces are not properly sanitized between uses, bacteria from raw meat or poultry can transfer to ready-to-eat food prepared on the same surface.
That violation was cited after the restaurant had already passed the bar for reopening. It means customers who visited in the days after the September 8 reopening were eating at a location where inspectors had documented an unsanitized food contact surface issue.
The Longer Record
The September 8 closure was not this location's first. State records show the Wendy's at 44304 US 27 has at least one prior emergency closure on record, making the September shutdown its second.
Across 29 inspections on record, inspectors have cited this location for 107 total violations. That averages to roughly 3.7 violations per inspection visit, though the distribution is uneven. The restaurant passed clean, with zero violations, on two recent occasions, in August 2024 and March 2026. But high-severity violations have appeared in five of the eight most recent inspections on record.
The pattern is not one of a facility that had a single bad stretch. High-severity citations appeared in January 2025, October 2025, and twice in September 2026, the closure inspection and the follow-up two weeks later. The only inspection in 2026 before the closure, conducted in March, produced no violations at all.
That gap between a clean March inspection and an emergency closure six months later is notable. A facility can pass one inspection and accumulate conditions that trigger a shutdown before the next scheduled visit. The September 8 closure is the clearest example of that pattern at this location.
The Prior Closure
The existence of a prior emergency closure at this location puts the September 8 shutdown in sharper relief. Two emergency closures across 29 inspections means this restaurant has been ordered vacated by state inspectors on roughly one in every fifteen visits.
Most Wendy's locations in Florida are never emergency-closed. A location that has been closed twice, and that continues to accumulate high-severity violations in the inspections that follow each closure, presents a different compliance picture than a restaurant with an isolated finding.
The September 24 inspection, sixteen days after the closure, found a high-severity violation for food contact surface sanitation. That inspection is the most recent on record for this location.
