ST AUGUSTINE, FL. State inspectors ordered Andaman Asian Bistro at 1935 A1A S closed on July 17, 2026, after documenting roach activity inside the restaurant, triggering the location's third emergency closure in its recorded inspection history.
The closure order required the restaurant to vacate by July 18. Inspectors returned that same day and found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, clearing the way for the restaurant to reopen at 10:18 a.m.
What Inspectors Found
Andaman Asian Bistro: High-Severity Violations by Inspection
The July 17 inspection produced nine high-severity violations and four intermediate violations, the highest single-visit tally in the restaurant's recent documented record. Roach activity was the violation that triggered the emergency order.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation does not require inspectors to publish live pest counts in every case, but roach activity at any level is classified as a condition that poses an immediate public health threat. That classification is what authorized the emergency closure order.
What This Violation Means
Cockroaches are not simply a sign of an unclean kitchen. They are documented carriers of pathogens including Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria, organisms that can cause severe gastrointestinal illness and, in vulnerable populations, life-threatening infection.
The danger is direct. Roaches move between drains, garbage, and food preparation surfaces. A roach that crosses a cutting board, a plate, or an open container of food can deposit bacteria without leaving any visible trace. A customer eating there would have no way of knowing.
That is why Florida treats roach activity as grounds for immediate closure rather than a citation that can be corrected on a follow-up visit. The state does not give a restaurant operating under active roach infestation a window to fix the problem while remaining open to the public.
The nine high-severity violations documented on the same day as the closure order compound that picture. High-severity citations represent conditions inspectors judge to be most directly linked to foodborne illness. Nine in a single inspection is a significant count.
The Pattern
The July 2026 closure did not arrive without warning. The inspection record at this location stretches back across 30 documented visits and 240 total violations.
Six of the eight most recent inspections before July 17 produced five or more high-severity violations. The November 2024 visit found eight high-severity and four intermediate violations. The May 2024 visit found seven high-severity and three intermediate violations. Three consecutive inspections in 2025, spanning April, August and February, each produced exactly five high-severity and two intermediate violations.
The only clean inspection in that stretch was February 14, 2025, which produced zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations. That result sits between two inspections that each found five high-severity violations.
The Longer Record
This was not the first time inspectors found pest activity at this address. On January 14, 2015, the restaurant was emergency-closed for rodent activity. It cleared inspection and reopened the following day, January 15, 2015.
The July 2026 closure is the third emergency closure at this location across its recorded history. That figure, three emergency closures across 30 inspections, means roughly one in every ten inspection cycles at this restaurant has ended in an emergency shutdown order.
Across all 30 inspections on record, the restaurant has accumulated 240 total violations. That average works out to eight violations per inspection visit. In practice, the distribution is uneven. Several inspections have produced zero violations, including the July 18 follow-up that cleared the most recent closure. But the inspections that do find problems have consistently found them in volume.
The pattern of high-severity violations without a sustained clean period is what distinguishes this record from a restaurant that had one bad inspection. Between May 2024 and July 2026, Andaman Asian Bistro produced high-severity violations in six of seven inspections, with counts ranging from five to nine. That is a two-year window with only one clean visit in it.
The restaurant cleared its July 18 follow-up inspection with zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations and was permitted to reopen that morning. Whether the conditions that produced nine high-severity violations and an emergency closure order on July 17 have been resolved beyond the immediate reinspection is not something the inspection record can answer on its own.
