CORTEZ, FL. Back in December 2025, state inspectors ordered Cortez Café at 12108 Cortez Rd shut down after documenting rodent activity inside the restaurant, a finding serious enough to trigger an emergency closure order on December 19.
The café was vacated the same day inspectors arrived. By 1:43 p.m., records show, the restaurant had addressed the immediate concern and was permitted to reopen, making the closure one of the shorter emergency shutdowns in recent county records. But the circumstances that led to it, and the inspection history behind it, tell a longer story.
What Inspectors Found That Day
Cortez Café: Recent Inspection Pattern
The December 19 inspection that triggered the closure produced four high-severity violations and three intermediate ones. Rodent activity was the violation that caused inspectors to order the café vacated.
The most recent inspection on record, conducted February 19, 2026, after the café had been operating again for two months, still produced three high-severity violations and one intermediate citation. Those violations included food from an unapproved or unknown source, failure to follow parasite destruction procedures, the absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity in a food service operation is among the violations that most reliably trigger emergency closure orders, and for good reason. Rodents carry Salmonella, Leptospira, and Hantavirus, among other pathogens, and they contaminate surfaces, food, and equipment through droppings, urine, and direct contact. The problem does not have to be visible to customers to be dangerous; a single mouse moving through a prep area overnight can contaminate surfaces that food touches the next morning.
The high-severity violations documented in the February 2026 follow-up inspection compound the concern. Food from an unapproved or unknown source bypasses the USDA and FDA inspection systems entirely. If a customer gets sick, there is no supply chain to trace, no lot number to pull, and no way to identify how many other people ate the same product.
The failure to follow parasite destruction procedures is specific and serious. Fish, pork, and wild game can carry parasites including Anisakis, tapeworm, and Trichinella. Proper freezing at regulated temperatures or thorough cooking kills them. Without documentation that either process was followed, there is no verification that the food served was safe.
The missing consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods is a legal and practical gap. Without that notice on a menu, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or otherwise at elevated risk have no way of knowing they are being served food that carries additional danger.
The Longer Record
The December closure was not the first time Cortez Café had been shut down by state inspectors. Records show one prior emergency closure before December 2025, meaning the December order was the facility's second in its documented history.
Across 35 inspections on record, the café has accumulated 194 total violations. That volume, spread across more than three dozen inspections, reflects a facility that has cycled through serious citations repeatedly without arriving at a sustained period of clean inspections.
The August 2024 inspection is worth noting: seven high-severity violations and two intermediate ones in a single visit. That is the highest single-inspection total in the recent record and came roughly 16 months before the December closure. The pattern from 2024 into 2025 shows high-severity violations present at nearly every inspection, with counts ranging from one to seven per visit.
The February 2026 inspection, the most recent in the data, shows three high-severity violations still on the books after the café had been operating for two months following its closure. That inspection is the last entry in the record.
Whether the February 2026 findings have since been resolved, and what inspectors have found on any subsequent visits, is not reflected in the data available.
