OCALA, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into Catrina Cocina Mexicana at 303 SE 17th Street and found enough live roach activity to order the restaurant shut down the same day.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation issued the emergency closure on February 17, 2026. The order required the restaurant to vacate by February 18. Inspectors returned that same day and cleared it to reopen, with the follow-up inspection showing zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations.
That rapid turnaround from closure to clearance was not the whole story.
What Inspectors Found
The February 17 inspection that triggered the closure documented nine high-severity violations alongside four intermediate ones. Roach activity was the specific finding that crossed the threshold for an emergency shutdown order.
The closure was not the only serious finding that day. Inspectors also cited the restaurant for food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, a critical failure that allows pathogens like Salmonella in poultry to survive and reach customers. They documented improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning employees were attempting to wash their hands but doing it incorrectly, leaving pathogens on their hands during food preparation.
Inspectors also found that the person in charge was not present or not performing required supervisory duties.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity is one of the clearest grounds for an emergency closure under Florida food safety rules. Roaches carry pathogens on their bodies and deposit them on food-contact surfaces, utensils, and food itself. Unlike a temperature violation that can be corrected by adjusting equipment, an active roach infestation indicates a sustained sanitation failure, not a single-day lapse.
The cooking temperature violation found alongside the roaches that day carried its own direct risk. Undercooking poultry is a leading documented cause of Salmonella outbreaks. Customers eating improperly cooked meat at Catrina Cocina Mexicana in February 2026 had no way of knowing the food had not reached the temperature required to kill those bacteria.
The improper handwashing citation is distinct from a failure to wash hands at all. Inspectors documented that employees were going through the motion of handwashing but using incorrect technique, which studies show leaves viable pathogens on hands even after the attempt. Combined with a person in charge who was not actively supervising, those two violations together describe a kitchen without functional oversight of its most basic safety practices.
The February 17 inspection also flagged inadequate shell stock identification and records, a traceability violation. Without proper documentation, there is no way to trace shellfish back to their harvest source if a customer becomes ill.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 closure was not an isolated event in the restaurant's history. It was the second emergency closure Catrina Cocina Mexicana had received across nine total inspections on record, with 105 total violations accumulated over that span.
The pattern in the inspection data is consistent. The August 2024 inspection found eight high-severity violations. A same-day follow-up that month cleared the facility, but the July 2024 inspection before it had already flagged five high-severity violations. By August 2025, the count was back up to ten high-severity violations. The December 2025 inspection, just two months before the roach closure, also found ten high-severity violations.
In six of the eight inspections where violations were recorded, the high-severity count was five or higher. That is not a facility occasionally slipping below standards. That is a facility that has returned to serious violation counts repeatedly across nearly two years of documented inspections.
The most recent inspection in the data, conducted on April 22, 2026, found eight high-severity violations and six intermediate ones, including improper sewage or waste water disposal, inadequate cooling and cold holding equipment, and single-use items being improperly reused. That inspection came more than two months after the February closure and more than two months after the follow-up inspection that had shown zero violations.
The April 2026 inspection also cited the restaurant again for no person in charge present or performing duties, the same violation documented during the February closure inspection. It also cited employee failure to report illness symptoms, a violation that the CDC identifies as the leading cause of multi-victim outbreaks, because an ill food worker who does not report symptoms continues handling food and can directly transmit illness to customers.
The February 2026 closure record shows the restaurant was cleared to reopen the following morning. Whether the violations documented in the April 2026 inspection resulted in any further enforcement action was not reflected in the data available.