SEBRING, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors ordered David T's Kitchen on Roseland Avenue shut down after finding evidence of rodent activity inside the restaurant, the second time in the facility's history that inspectors had pulled its operating authority.
The closure order was issued February 18. The restaurant was given until February 19 to vacate, and records show it did reopen that same day, at 10:04 a.m., after a follow-up inspection.
What Inspectors Found
David T's Kitchen: Inspection Severity, 2024–2026
The February 18 inspection that triggered the closure documented five high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. The rodent activity finding was the basis for the emergency order.
The follow-up inspection on February 19, conducted before the restaurant was allowed to reopen, found one remaining high-severity violation and two intermediate violations. Those violations involved food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, and single-use items being improperly reused.
The food contact surface violation was still classified as high-severity even after the closure had been addressed.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity in a food service environment is one of the conditions Florida law treats as an immediate threat to public health. Rodents contaminate surfaces, equipment, and food with urine, droppings, and hair. Unlike a temperature violation or a paperwork gap, rodent presence is not correctable by adjusting a dial or updating a log. It requires physical remediation, and inspectors cannot verify that remediation is complete without a follow-up visit.
That is why the state issued an emergency closure order rather than a standard warning.
The violations that remained after the closure, including improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, carry their own risks. Cutting boards, prep tables, and similar surfaces that are not properly sanitized become transfer points for bacteria between raw and ready-to-eat food. The health risk is direct: a surface that tests contaminated can move pathogens to food that will be served without further cooking.
The single-use item reuse violation, also documented in the February 19 follow-up, adds a separate contamination pathway. Items designed for one use, including gloves, foil, and disposable containers, are not built to withstand repeated cleaning. Reusing them creates contact points that cannot be reliably sanitized, which is why the violation carries a contamination risk classification.
The Longer Record
The February closure did not come out of nowhere. David T's Kitchen had accumulated 80 total violations across 10 inspections on record, and February 18 was not the first time the state had ordered it shut down. Records show the facility had one prior emergency closure before this one.
The inspection history shows a facility that has struggled consistently with high-severity findings. Of the eight dated inspections in the record, six produced at least three high-severity violations. The worst single inspection came on October 24, 2025, when inspectors documented six high-severity violations and five intermediate violations, the highest combined count in the facility's history.
The only inspection with zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations was June 27, 2024. Every inspection before and after that date produced high-severity findings.
The pattern through 2025 is particularly striking. Inspectors visited five times between January and December of that year. Every single visit produced high-severity violations, ranging from three to six per inspection. The facility did not record a single clean visit in all of 2025.
The Day After
The February 19 reopening came roughly 24 hours after the closure order. The follow-up inspection cleared the rodent finding, which was the basis for the emergency shutdown, but the inspector still documented a high-severity violation for food contact surfaces and two intermediate violations for utensil cleaning and single-use item reuse.
A restaurant can legally reopen once the condition that triggered an emergency closure has been corrected. The remaining violations documented on February 19 do not, on their own, constitute grounds for continued closure under state law.
What the record shows is a facility that cleared the immediate emergency but carried unresolved sanitation violations into its first hours of operation after the shutdown.
The February 18 closure was the second emergency shutdown in the restaurant's history. The inspection record does not indicate what triggered the first one.