BIG PINE KEY, FL. Inspectors ordered Boardwalk Bar and Grill Inc on Ave A shut down on August 19 after documenting rodent activity inside the restaurant, the specific finding that triggered an emergency closure and a mandate that the facility vacate by the following day.
The bar and grill was allowed to reopen on August 20 after a follow-up inspection, but the closure was not its first, and the record leading up to it was not clean.
What Inspectors Found
Boardwalk Bar and Grill: Recent Inspection History
The closure on August 19 produced five high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The rodent activity finding was the trigger for the emergency order, but inspectors documented additional serious problems on the same visit.
The follow-up inspection on August 20 still found one high-severity violation and two intermediate violations after the facility had worked to address the issues overnight. The restaurant was cleared to reopen that morning.
The Violations
The most recent inspection on record, the August 20 follow-up, cited food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized as a remaining high-severity violation. That finding persisted even after the facility had been given notice and time to correct problems identified the day before.
Two intermediate violations also remained on August 20. Inspectors documented improper sewage or waste water disposal, and the reuse of single-use items that were designed to be discarded after one use.
Those three violations standing after a remediation effort are notable on their own.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity in a food service facility is one of the conditions Florida law treats as an immediate public health threat, which is why it carries the authority to trigger an emergency closure without waiting for a scheduled follow-up. Rodents move through walls, floors, and storage areas, and they contaminate food surfaces, packaging, and equipment with droppings, urine, and the pathogens they carry. A customer eating at a facility with active rodent presence has no way to know that the food or the surface it was prepared on has been exposed.
The food contact surface violation that survived into the August 20 inspection compounds that risk directly. Improperly cleaned and sanitized cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils are one of the most common vectors for bacterial transfer from one food item to another. When rodent contamination is already documented in a facility and surfaces are still not being cleaned properly, the two problems reinforce each other.
The sewage disposal violation carries a separate and serious risk. Improper handling of waste water creates the possibility of fecal contamination spreading through a facility, reaching prep surfaces, equipment, and food. That is not a theoretical concern; it is the documented mechanism behind some of the most serious foodborne illness outbreaks on record.
Reusing single-use items, the third remaining violation, introduces contamination risk from a different direction. Gloves, cups, utensils, and foil liners are manufactured for a single use because repeated use degrades the material and creates surfaces that trap bacteria. Reusing them after contact with food or other surfaces defeats the purpose of using them in the first place.
The Longer Record
The August 19 closure was not the first time the state has ordered Boardwalk Bar and Grill shut down. The facility has one prior emergency closure on record, meaning this month's action is its second in the history documented in state inspection files.
The facility has accumulated 207 violations across 25 inspections on record, a figure that works out to more than eight violations per inspection on average. That average does not reflect a consistent pattern of minor issues; the recent history shows repeated high-severity findings across multiple years.
April 2025 produced six high-severity violations and two intermediate violations in a single visit, the steepest single-inspection tally in the recent record. November 2025 brought three high-severity and three intermediate violations. September 2024 produced four high-severity violations.
The March 2026 inspection stood out as an exception. Inspectors found zero high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations, a clean visit that came roughly five months before the August closure. That clean inspection did not hold. By August 19, the facility was back to five high-severity violations and an emergency shutdown order, with rodent activity at the center of it.
The August 20 follow-up cleared the facility to reopen, but one high-severity violation and two intermediate violations remained on the books at the time inspectors signed off.
