PALM SPRINGS, FL. A Colombian restaurant on Forest Hill Boulevard was ordered closed by state inspectors on May 21 after they documented rodent, roach and fly activity throughout the facility, the third emergency shutdown at the same address since April 2023.
El Riconcito Colombiano at 3027 Forest Hill Blvd was ordered vacated by May 22. The restaurant reopened later that same day, records show, at 9:48 a.m.
What Inspectors Found
El Riconcito Colombiano: Emergency Closure History
The May 21 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. Among the most serious: no person in charge was present or performing duties, and employees were not reporting symptoms of illness.
A third high-severity violation involved improper sewage or wastewater disposal, a finding that inspectors classified as an intermediate concern on follow-up.
The day after the closure, a reinspection on May 22 found two high-severity violations and one intermediate violation still on record, a reduction from the prior day but not a clean bill of health.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent, roach and fly activity in a food preparation environment is one of the most direct public health threats inspectors can document. Rodents carry salmonella, leptospirosis and hantavirus. Cockroaches spread E. coli and salmonella through contact with food surfaces, utensils and open food containers. Flies transfer pathogens from waste to food in seconds. Any one of those findings alone can trigger an emergency closure under Florida law.
The absence of a person in charge compounds every other violation on the list. According to federal Centers for Disease Control data cited in Florida's inspection framework, facilities without active managerial control have three times as many critical violations as those with a trained supervisor present and engaged. When no one is accountable on the floor, pest problems go unaddressed, temperature logs go unchecked and employees go unsupervised.
The illness-reporting violation is its own category of risk. Food workers who do not report symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or jaundice are the leading documented cause of multi-victim foodborne illness outbreaks. Norovirus, in particular, spreads with extreme efficiency through food handling by a symptomatic employee.
Improper sewage or wastewater disposal introduces the possibility of fecal contamination across the facility, including surfaces where food is prepared and plated. Raw sewage contains pathogens that survive on surfaces long enough to reach a customer's plate.
The Longer Record
The May 21 closure was not an isolated event. It was the third emergency shutdown at this address in roughly 26 months.
State records show the first emergency closure came on April 4, 2023, for roach and fly activity. The restaurant reopened the following day. Two months later, on June 6, 2023, inspectors returned and found the same conditions, roach and fly activity, and ordered the restaurant closed again. That closure lasted two days.
The pattern between closures is equally notable. A September 2024 routine inspection produced five high-severity violations and one intermediate violation. A February 2024 inspection found three high-severity violations. A February 12, 2024 inspection earlier that same month documented five high-severity violations and one intermediate violation.
Across 17 total inspections on record, the facility has accumulated 101 violations. High-severity findings appear in every inspection year in the data, without a single inspection period showing sustained improvement.
The August 2023 inspection, just two months after the second emergency closure, still produced three high-severity violations and one intermediate violation. The November 2025 inspection found three high-severity violations, with a same-day follow-up showing zero, a result that suggests rapid corrective action but did not prevent the facility from reaching emergency-closure conditions again six months later.
After the Closure
The restaurant cleared the threshold for reopening on the morning of May 22, records show. The reinspection that day still documented two high-severity violations and one intermediate violation, meaning the facility was permitted to resume serving customers before all serious findings were resolved.
Whether those remaining violations have since been corrected is not confirmed in the available records.