POMPANO BEACH, FL. State inspectors ordered Au Bon Gout Take Out Restaurant at 5273 N Dixie Hwy shut down on September 15 after documenting rodent activity on the premises, the fifth emergency closure in the restaurant's recorded history and the fourth triggered specifically by pest activity.
The closure order gave the restaurant until September 16 to vacate. It reopened that same day at 12:08 p.m., following a follow-up inspection that found the high-severity violations had been resolved.
What Inspectors Found
Au Bon Gout Emergency Closure History
The September 15 inspection also produced three high-severity violations and four intermediate violations. Two of those intermediate violations carried over into the follow-up inspection the next day, even after the restaurant was cleared to reopen.
Those remaining violations were not minor housekeeping issues. Inspectors cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal and inadequate ventilation and lighting, both still unresolved as of the September 16 follow-up.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity is one of the few findings that triggers an immediate emergency closure under Florida law, and the reason is direct. Rodents move through a food-service kitchen without restriction, contacting food surfaces, stored ingredients, and preparation equipment. They leave droppings and urine along their routes. A customer eating food prepared in a kitchen with active rodent presence has no way of knowing what those animals touched before the meal was made.
The improper sewage and wastewater disposal violation that remained on the books after reopening carries its own serious risk. Sewage contains fecal bacteria, including pathogens capable of causing severe gastrointestinal illness. When sewage disposal fails inside a food-service facility, that contamination can spread to food contact surfaces, to employee hands, and to food itself. It is not a background condition. It is an active contamination pathway.
Inadequate ventilation compounds both problems. Without proper airflow, grease-laden vapors accumulate on surfaces throughout the kitchen. That grease becomes a harborage point for the same pests that triggered this closure in the first place.
The Longer Record
The September 15 closure did not arrive without warning. State records show 39 inspections at this address, with 252 total violations documented across that history. The restaurant has now been emergency-closed five times in eleven years.
The three prior closures before this week all listed roach activity as the cause. The 2015 closure required one day to resolve. The 2018 closure required two days. The 2024 closure, for roach activity on April 1, required one day. Each time, the restaurant reopened and continued operating.
The inspection record between closures does not show a facility correcting course. The August 2024 inspection, four months after that year's emergency closure, produced nine high-severity violations and four intermediate violations, the worst single inspection in the recent data. The June 2024 inspection had four high-severity violations. The October 2024 inspection had four more.
The pattern extends through 2025. Inspectors returned in September 2025 and found two high-severity violations. They returned in December 2025 for a two-day inspection sequence, finding five high-severity violations on December 11 and two more on December 12. Then came September 2026, and the fifth closure.
The Pattern
What the record shows is a facility that has cycled through emergency closure, rapid reopening, and continued violations at least five times since 2015. The specific violation type has shifted from roaches to rodents, but the underlying condition, active pest presence in a food-service kitchen, has not been eliminated across more than a decade of inspections.
The follow-up inspection on September 16 cleared the rodent violation and allowed the restaurant to reopen. But two violations, improper sewage disposal and inadequate ventilation, remained on the books when inspectors signed off that morning.
Whether those two outstanding violations have since been addressed is not confirmed in the available records.
