TAMPA, FL. State inspectors ordered Café Caribe at 10422 N Dale Mabry Hwy closed on April 22 after documenting active roach and fly activity inside the restaurant, the second emergency closure in the facility's recorded history.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation issued the closure order and required the restaurant to vacate by April 23. Café Caribe cleared inspection and was allowed to reopen at 2:16 p.m. that same day.
What Inspectors Found
Café Caribe: Recent Inspection Severity
The April 22 inspection produced six high-severity violations and four intermediate violations, the most serious single-visit tally in Café Caribe's recent record. Roach and fly activity were the findings that triggered the emergency order.
Inspectors returned on April 23 and conducted two separate follow-up inspections. The first found one high-severity violation and one intermediate violation. A second visit the same day still showed one high-severity violation before the restaurant was ultimately cleared to reopen.
The high-severity violation documented in the final follow-up was inadequate handwashing by food employees. Inspectors also cited improper reuse of single-use items as an intermediate violation.
What These Violations Mean
Roach and fly activity inside a food-preparation environment is treated by state regulators as an immediate threat to public health, serious enough to close a restaurant on the spot. Both insects move freely between waste, drains, and food surfaces, carrying pathogens that can cause salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne illnesses. Customers eating at Café Caribe on April 22 had no way of knowing inspectors would find active pest activity that same day.
The handwashing violation that persisted into the follow-up inspections carries its own weight. Improper handwashing is the single most direct pathway for spreading foodborne illness in a kitchen, because hands touch every surface, every utensil, and every plate that reaches a customer. Its presence on the same day inspectors were trying to clear the restaurant for reopening is notable.
The single-use item violation is less dramatic but points to a practice gap. Reusing gloves, utensils, or other disposable items that were designed for one use defeats the contamination barrier those items are meant to create. It is the kind of violation that compounds the risk posed by other findings.
The Pattern
This closure did not come out of nowhere. State records show Café Caribe has accumulated 245 violations across 27 inspections, and this is the second time the restaurant has been emergency-closed in that history.
The inspection record going back through 2024 shows high-severity violations at every single visit. The April 2025 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and two intermediate violations, the worst single-visit count in the recent data. December 2025 brought five high-severity violations. February 2026 produced one. Then April 22 brought six, along with the pest activity that closed the doors.
That is six consecutive inspections, spanning two years, each with at least one high-severity citation.
The Longer Record
Twenty-seven inspections and 245 total violations place Café Caribe among the more heavily documented facilities in Hillsborough County's permanent food service category. The volume alone is significant. A facility that has been inspected 27 times has had 27 opportunities for inspectors to identify problems and for management to correct them at the root.
The prior emergency closure, before this week's, means the April 22 shutdown is not the restaurant's introduction to the most serious level of regulatory action. It is a repeat of it.
The two follow-up inspections on April 23 cleared the pest activity quickly enough for a same-day reopening. But the handwashing violation that appeared in those follow-up visits, after a closure specifically ordered over contamination risk, is the detail that sits uneasily against the speed of that clearance.
Café Caribe was licensed for permanent food service at the time of the closure and reopened at 2:16 p.m. on April 23. Whether the conditions that produced six high-severity violations in a single inspection have been fully addressed, or whether the facility's documented two-year pattern of recurring serious citations continues, will depend on what inspectors find the next time they walk through the door.