ORLANDO, FL. State inspectors ordered China Lee at 2338 S Kirkman Road closed on April 28 after finding roach and rodent activity inside the restaurant, the fifth time in eight years the Orlando eatery has been shut down for conditions inspectors deemed an immediate threat to public health.
The closure order required the restaurant to vacate by May 1. Records show it had reopened by 9:57 a.m. that same day.
What Inspectors Found on Closure Day
China Lee: Emergency Closure History
The April 28 inspection that triggered the closure documented nine high-severity violations and six intermediate violations. Among the high-severity findings: employees had no written health policy governing when sick workers must stay out of the kitchen, food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled near food preparation areas.
Inspectors also cited inadequate handwashing by food employees and the absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked menu items.
The intermediate violations included improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, and improperly maintained toilet facilities.
The restaurant did not clear those findings on April 28. Follow-up inspections on April 29 and April 30 each showed five high-severity and five intermediate violations still outstanding. A fourth consecutive inspection on May 1, the day the facility was permitted to reopen, also recorded five high-severity and five intermediate violations.
What These Violations Mean
Roach and rodent activity is among the narrowest grounds on which Florida inspectors can order an immediate emergency closure. Both pests carry pathogens on their bodies and in their waste, and both move freely between drains, garbage, and food preparation surfaces. A customer eating food that roaches or rodents have contacted may not know it until they are sick.
The other high-severity violations documented on April 28 compound that risk significantly. Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, such as cutting boards and prep tables, allow bacteria from one food item to transfer directly to the next. Without a handwashing policy and evidence that employees follow it, there is no reliable barrier between a worker who has handled raw protein or touched a contaminated surface and the food that reaches a customer's plate.
Improperly stored or mislabeled toxic chemicals near food create a separate and acute danger. Chemical poisoning from contaminated food can be immediate, and unlike bacterial illness, it does not require an incubation period.
Improper sewage disposal, listed among the intermediate violations, carries a risk of fecal contamination throughout the facility. Raw sewage contains pathogens including E. coli and Salmonella, and its presence anywhere near food preparation is treated by inspectors as a serious compounding factor.
The Longer Record
The April 28 closure was not a sudden finding at a restaurant with a clean history.
State records show China Lee has been inspected 67 times and has accumulated 1,360 violations across those visits. The restaurant has now been emergency-closed five times, all for pest activity: twice in April and May of 2018, once in April 2020, and now in April 2026.
The inspections in the months leading up to this closure showed a facility that was not trending toward compliance. On September 3, 2025, inspectors found 13 high-severity and 7 intermediate violations. On March 16, 2026, six weeks before the closure, inspectors documented 12 high-severity and 8 intermediate violations in a single visit. The following day, March 17, a re-inspection found 9 high-severity and 7 intermediate violations still unresolved. A third visit on March 18 showed 7 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations.
That March sequence, three inspections in three days with high-severity counts that barely moved, preceded the April 28 closure by roughly six weeks.
The two 2018 closures came within 17 days of each other, both for roach activity. The 2020 closure, also for roach activity, came two years later. The 2026 closure, again for roach and now also rodent activity, came six years after that.
China Lee had reopened by the morning of May 1. But as of the final inspection recorded in state data, the facility still carried five high-severity and five intermediate violations, the same count that had persisted across the three days of inspections while the restaurant was ordered closed.