WEST MELBOURNE, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into Ethel and Freds Entrée Restaurant at 3016 W New Haven Ave and found what it took to force the place shut: rodent activity inside a licensed food service establishment that had already been emergency-closed once before.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ordered the restaurant vacated by February 24, 2026. Records show it reopened the same day, at 9:04 a.m.
What Inspectors Found on Closure Day
The February 23 inspection produced 7 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations in a single visit. That is the second-highest single-day tally in the facility's documented inspection history, behind only the 8 high-severity violations recorded in March 2025.
The closure itself was triggered specifically by rodent activity, which under Florida food safety rules constitutes an immediate threat to public health. Inspectors ordered the restaurant cleared by the following morning.
The most recent inspection on record, conducted April 27, 2026, found 3 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations still present, including inadequate shell stock identification, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. An intermediate violation for improper sewage or waste water disposal was also documented, along with citations for single-use items being improperly reused and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity in a food service facility is not a cleanliness citation. It is a contamination event. Rodents carry Salmonella, Hantavirus, and Leptospira, and they deposit urine and feces across surfaces, inside equipment, and on food contact areas continuously, not just when an inspector is present. An emergency closure for rodent activity means inspectors judged the risk to customers eating there that day to be immediate and unacceptable.
The shellfish traceability violation documented in April is a different category of risk. When a restaurant cannot produce proper identification and sourcing records for shell stock, including oysters, clams, and mussels, there is no way to trace those items back to their harvest beds if a customer gets sick. Shellfish are among the highest-risk foods served in American restaurants because they are frequently consumed raw or barely cooked, and contaminated product from an unverified source can cause Vibrio infections, norovirus, and hepatitis A.
The food contact surface violation compounds the picture. Cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that are not properly cleaned and sanitized between uses become direct transfer routes for bacteria from raw proteins to ready-to-eat foods. Combined with no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked items, customers with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, the elderly, and young children had no posted warning about the risks they were taking.
The sewage disposal violation is the most acutely alarming of the intermediate citations. Improperly handled waste water introduces fecal contamination into a facility. That is not a paperwork failure. It is a direct pathway for pathogens like E. coli and norovirus to reach food preparation surfaces.
The Longer Record
Ethel and Freds has 29 inspections on record and 300 total violations documented across that history. That is an average of more than 10 violations per inspection visit.
The February 2026 closure was not the first. The facility has one prior emergency closure on record before this one, meaning this was the second time the state judged conditions there to require customers be locked out. The inspection record does not show a restaurant that stumbled into a bad stretch. It shows a consistent pattern across years.
In October 2025, inspectors found 5 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate violations in a single visit. Five days later, a follow-up found 2 high-severity and 1 intermediate still present. In March 2025, the facility recorded its worst single-day tally: 8 high-severity violations and 1 intermediate. That visit came and went without triggering a closure. The rodent finding in February 2026 did.
The April 2026 inspection, the most recent on record, found the facility still accumulating high-severity citations more than two months after the closure. Three high-severity violations on that visit suggest the February shutdown did not produce the kind of sustained correction that would end the pattern. Whether conditions have improved since April 27, 2026 is not reflected in the available records.
Where Things Stand
The restaurant reopened the morning after the February closure, clearing the immediate rodent finding quickly enough to satisfy inspectors by 9:04 a.m. on February 24. But the April inspection found the facility back at 3 high-severity violations, including the food contact surface and shellfish traceability citations, both of which carry direct public health consequences.
Three hundred violations across 29 inspections at a single West Melbourne restaurant is a documented record, not an interpretation. What the April 2026 inspection found after the second emergency closure in the facility's history is the last entry in that record so far.