JACKSONVILLE, FL. State inspectors ordered Casa Dora Italian Café at 108 E Forsyth St. closed on September 9, 2026, after documenting rodent activity, roach activity and fly activity inside the downtown restaurant, the tenth time the café has been emergency-closed since 2022.
The closure order required the restaurant to vacate by September 11. Inspectors returned that same day and found two high-severity violations and one intermediate violation still on record. Another follow-up on September 10 showed the same tally: two high-severity, one intermediate. It was not until September 14 that the high-severity violations were cleared, leaving only a single intermediate citation.
What Inspectors Found
Casa Dora Emergency Closures, 2022–2026
The September 9 closure was triggered by a combination of pest problems that inspectors documented simultaneously: rodents, roaches and flies all present in the same facility on the same day. That combination is among the most serious findings an inspector can document in a food service environment.
The most recent follow-up inspection, conducted September 14, found one remaining violation: single-use items being improperly reused. Inspectors noted that items designed for a single use, such as gloves, cups, utensils or foil, were being used more than once.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent, roach and fly activity inside a restaurant kitchen represents a direct contamination pathway to food, food-contact surfaces and preparation equipment. Rodents carry bacteria including Salmonella and Leptospira in their droppings and urine. Roaches travel between sewage, trash and food surfaces, transferring pathogens with each contact. Flies land on waste and food interchangeably, depositing bacteria each time.
Any one of those three pest types is sufficient grounds for an emergency closure under Florida law. Finding all three on the same inspection visit, as happened at Casa Dora on September 9, signals a pest control failure that is not incidental or isolated.
The intermediate violation that persisted through the September 14 follow-up, the improper reuse of single-use items, adds a separate contamination concern. Single-use items are manufactured without the durability or surface integrity required for repeated cleaning. Reusing them means contaminants from a previous use can transfer directly to the next food or surface they contact, with no reliable way to sanitize them in between.
The Pattern
The September 9 closure was not the first time inspectors found pests at this address. It was the tenth emergency closure on record.
The five prior closures on file tell a consistent story. In September 2022, the restaurant was shut down for roach and rodent activity and allowed to reopen two days later. In August 2023, it was closed again, this time for a sewage issue combined with roach activity, and remained shuttered for four days.
Three closures followed in a span of less than three months in early 2025. The first came February 26 for roach activity. A second came March 13, less than three weeks later, also for roach activity. A third came November 5 of the same year, again for roaches.
That sequence, three emergency closures within roughly nine months, all for the same pest, preceded the September 2026 closure by less than a year.
The Longer Record
State records show 71 inspections on file for Casa Dora Italian Café, with 669 total violations documented across that history. That averages to more than nine violations per inspection visit over the life of the record.
The weeks immediately before the September 9 closure show a facility already in trouble. On September 3, inspectors documented seven high-severity violations and two intermediate violations. On September 4, three high-severity violations and one intermediate violation remained. Those visits came less than a week before the closure order.
Going further back, a June 15, 2026 inspection also produced seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The facility has not had a clean high-severity record in any inspection captured in the recent history.
The September 14 follow-up cleared the high-severity violations and left one intermediate citation outstanding. Whether that intermediate violation, the improper reuse of single-use items, has since been resolved is not confirmed in the inspection record.
