STUART, FL. Inspectors ordered Florentinos Italian Cuisine on SE Ocean Blvd shut down on June 22 after finding roach and rodent activity at the 2571 SE Ocean Blvd restaurant, triggering an emergency closure that kept the Stuart dining room dark for four days.
The closure was the third in the restaurant's documented history, all tied to pest activity. State records show the facility has accumulated 132 violations across 30 inspections.
What Inspectors Found
Florentinos: Inspection Pattern, June 2026
The June 22 inspection produced four high-severity violations and four intermediate violations. Among them: toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, a finding that accompanied the roach and rodent activity as grounds for the emergency order.
Inspectors returned each of the following four days. On June 23, one high-severity and three intermediate violations remained. By June 24 and June 25, the count had dropped to one high-severity and two intermediate violations each day. The restaurant was allowed to reopen the morning of June 26 at 10:08 a.m., with one high-severity and one intermediate violation still on the books.
The single high-severity violation that persisted through reopening was the improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals. The intermediate violation was inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
Roach and rodent activity is among the most direct grounds for an emergency closure under Florida food safety rules. Both cockroaches and rodents carry pathogens, and their presence in a food preparation environment creates a contamination route from surfaces to food to customers with no further steps required.
The improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals violation adds a separate and acute risk. When cleaning agents, sanitizers, or pesticides are stored near food or lack clear labeling, a single mislabeled container can result in a chemical being used on food-contact surfaces or inadvertently introduced into a dish. The health consequence is not gradual, it is immediate: acute poisoning.
The inadequate ventilation finding carries a slower but compounding risk. Poor ventilation allows grease-laden vapors, carbon monoxide, smoke, and steam to accumulate in a kitchen. Over time, that buildup also creates conditions where grease deposits become harder to clean, which in turn creates harborage for the same pests that triggered the closure in the first place.
The fact that the improperly stored chemicals violation remained on the books at the time of reopening is notable. The state determined the facility met the threshold to reopen, but the highest-severity violation documented during the closure had not been fully resolved.
The Longer Record
This was not Florentinos' first emergency closure for pest activity, and it was not its second. State records show the restaurant was also emergency-closed on October 8, 2020, for rodent activity, and was allowed to reopen the following day. The June 2026 closure is the third time the state has ordered the restaurant vacated, and the second time rodents and roaches together were cited as the cause.
The facility has 30 inspections on record and 132 total violations. That volume tells a story about frequency, not just severity. Inspectors visited in November 2025 and found four high-severity violations. They returned in February 2026 and found six high-severity violations on February 24, followed by two more on February 25. The June 22 closure came less than four months after that February stretch.
The February 2026 inspections produced no intermediate violations alongside those six high-severity findings, which suggests the problems inspectors were documenting were concentrated at the most serious end of the scale. The November 2025 visit showed the same pattern: four high-severity violations, zero intermediate.
Three emergency closures, all connected to pests or pest-adjacent conditions, across a six-year span at the same address. The 2020 rodent closure resolved in a single day. The 2026 roach and rodent closure took four days of follow-up inspections before the state allowed the doors to reopen, and the most serious remaining violation was still listed as unresolved at that moment.
Where Things Stand
Florentinos was licensed for permanent food service and did reopen the morning of June 26. The improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals violation, classified as high-severity, was still cited on the reopening inspection report.
Whether a subsequent inspection has cleared that violation is not reflected in the data available at publication. The restaurant has been ordered vacated and reopened before, in 2020, and accumulated 132 violations in the years between that closure and this one.
