JACKSONVILLE, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors walked into 5th Element Taste of India on Baymeadows Road and found enough to shut the place down on the spot: active roach and fly activity inside a restaurant that had been through the same thing before, twice, in the years prior.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ordered the restaurant at 9551 Baymeadows Rd closed on March 10, 2026. The inspection that triggered the closure documented 8 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations. Inspectors ordered the facility vacated by March 12.
It was the restaurant's fourth emergency closure on record.
What Inspectors Found
The closure was triggered by roach and fly activity, the same combination that had shut the restaurant down in April 2023. The March 10 inspection produced 8 high-severity violations, the most serious category in the state's inspection framework. Five intermediate violations accompanied them.
Inspectors returned on March 11 and found 2 intermediate violations still present but no high-severity issues. A second visit on March 12 cleared the restaurant entirely. A third visit the same day confirmed the facility met state standards, and 5th Element Taste of India was allowed to reopen at 1:58 p.m.
The turnaround from closure to reopening took roughly 48 hours.
What These Violations Mean
Roach and fly activity inside a food-service kitchen is not a cosmetic problem. Cockroaches carry pathogens including salmonella, E. coli, and listeria on their bodies and in their droppings, depositing them on food-contact surfaces, utensils, and food itself. A customer who ate at 5th Element Taste of India on March 10, before inspectors arrived, had no way of knowing that live insects had been documented moving through the kitchen.
Flies present a parallel risk. They feed on decaying organic matter and transfer bacteria directly to food surfaces when they land. When inspectors find both roaches and flies in the same inspection, it points to conditions that sustained two separate pest populations simultaneously.
The 8 high-severity violations documented on March 10 compounded the pest findings. High-severity violations in Florida's inspection system are those most directly linked to foodborne illness, covering issues like improper food temperatures, contaminated food sources, and employee hygiene failures. Eight in a single inspection at one facility is a significant accumulation.
The state's threshold for emergency closure does not require a specific violation count. What triggers a shutdown is an inspector's determination that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. On March 10, 2026, the combination of active pest activity and 8 high-severity violations met that threshold.
The Longer Record
5th Element Taste of India: Emergency Closure History
The March 2026 closure was not an isolated event. State records show 59 inspections on file for this Baymeadows Road location, with 481 total violations accumulated across that history. The facility has been a permanent food-service operation with a license, and it has been inspected enough times to have built a substantial record.
The first emergency closure on file dates to April 21, 2015, when inspectors shut the restaurant down for roach activity. It reopened the following day. Nearly eight years passed before the second closure, in April 2023, again for roach and fly activity. That time, the restaurant was closed for two days before meeting state standards.
The gap between the 2023 closure and the March 2026 closure was less than three years. In August 2025, seven months before the most recent shutdown, inspectors documented 4 high-severity violations at the restaurant. No closure was ordered that visit, but the inspection did not produce a clean record.
Two months after the March 2026 closure and reopening, inspectors returned on May 18, 2026, and found 5 high-severity violations. A follow-up visit on May 19 showed zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. The May 18 inspection is the most recent high-severity finding in the data.
The pattern across 59 inspections and four emergency closures is one of recurring serious violations, short remediation windows, and returns to compliance followed by new accumulations of high-severity findings. Whether the conditions documented in May 2026 have since been addressed is not reflected in the available records.