CLERMONT, FL. Live roach activity inside Crooked Spoon Gastropub at 200 Citrus Tower Blvd prompted state inspectors to order the restaurant emergency-closed on July 15, with a deadline to vacate by July 17.
The gastropub reopened at 10:12 a.m. on July 17, after a follow-up inspection. But the closure was not an isolated event. It was the second time in the restaurant's documented history that the state had forced it to shut its doors.
What Inspectors Found on July 15
Crooked Spoon Gastropub: Recent Inspection Severity
The July 15 inspection produced four high-severity violations and three intermediate ones. The roach activity finding was the trigger for the emergency order, but it was not the only serious problem inspectors documented that day.
Inspectors also cited toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, a violation that carries a risk of acute poisoning if chemicals come into contact with food or are confused with food-safe products. A consumer advisory for raw or undercooked menu items was also missing, leaving diners with no way to know they were eating food that had not been fully cooked.
The intermediate violations included improper sewage or wastewater disposal and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
The Follow-Up
By the morning of July 17, inspectors returned and found the restaurant had reduced its violations to two high-severity and two intermediate. The state deemed that sufficient to reopen.
The two-day turnaround is not unusual for emergency closures triggered by pest activity. What is unusual is the volume of serious violations that preceded it.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity is one of the fastest routes to an emergency closure under Florida food safety rules, and for a direct reason. Cockroaches carry pathogens including Salmonella and E. coli on their bodies and legs, depositing them on food-contact surfaces, utensils, and food itself. A customer eating at Crooked Spoon on the evening of July 14 would have had no way to know that inspectors would find active roach presence the following morning.
The chemical storage violation compounds the risk. When toxic cleaning agents or pesticides are stored near food or in unlabeled containers, a single mix-up, by a line cook grabbing the wrong bottle or a chemical spilling onto a prep surface, can cause acute poisoning. This is not a theoretical risk. It is a documented contamination pathway.
The sewage disposal violation is the most severe of the intermediate findings. Improper wastewater disposal introduces fecal contamination into a facility, and that contamination can spread to surfaces, equipment, and hands. Combined with the roach finding, it describes a kitchen where multiple contamination routes were present simultaneously on the same day.
The missing consumer advisory affects a specific and vulnerable group of diners. Elderly customers, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems face the highest risk from undercooked proteins. Without a posted advisory, they cannot make an informed choice about what they order.
The Longer Record
Thirty-eight inspections. Three hundred and ninety-eight total violations. Two emergency closures. That is the documented history of Crooked Spoon Gastropub in Lake County.
The most recent closure was not a sudden finding in an otherwise clean record. The June 10 inspection, five weeks before the July 15 shutdown, produced six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. The October 2025 inspection produced five high-severity violations. The May 2025 inspection produced ten high-severity violations and three intermediate ones, the worst single-visit tally in the recent record.
Only one inspection in the past two years came back clean on high-severity violations. That was December 2025, when inspectors found zero high-severity citations and one intermediate. Every other inspection in the documented recent history carried multiple serious findings.
The first emergency closure predates the current inspection window in the data, but its existence means this July was not the first time the state concluded the restaurant posed an immediate threat to public health. A facility that has now been emergency-closed twice across 38 inspections, and that logged 398 total violations over that span, is averaging more than ten violations per inspection visit.
The July 17 follow-up found two high-severity violations still on the books at the time of reopening. What those two remaining violations were, the data does not specify.
