FLORIDA. Twenty-five restaurants were emergency-closed across Florida between August 19 and August 25, 2026, and twenty-three of them were shut down for the same reason: pest activity. Roaches, rodents, and flies drove closures from Pensacola to the Florida Keys, hitting national chains and neighborhood spots alike, all in a single week during the height of summer.
The Day Everything Closed
August 21 was the week's worst single day. Eleven restaurants were ordered closed across the state before noon, a concentration of enforcement that stretched inspectors from the Panhandle to South Florida.
Crab Trap on Perdido Key Drive in Pensacola was hit with both roach and fly activity, a combination that inspectors treat as among the most serious pest findings. The waterfront seafood restaurant was closed and did not reopen until 11:12 a.m. that same day.
Sushi Masa Premium on Palm Pointe Drive in Tampa was closed for roach activity and cleared by 3:28 p.m. A raw fish kitchen with a live roach problem is exactly the scenario food safety officials flag as highest risk, given that roaches move between sewage, garbage, and food preparation surfaces.
Longhorn Steakhouse of Cypress Creek on North Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale was shuttered the same morning for roach activity and allowed to reopen at 4:23 p.m. It was one of two national chains closed on August 21 alone.
Panera Bread #776 on Roosevelt Boulevard in Jacksonville was closed for fly activity and back open by 8:52 a.m., the fastest turnaround of the entire week. Dunkin' Donuts on State Road 200 in Ocala was also closed for flies and reopened at 8:31 a.m., eleven minutes faster than Panera.
Mosey's Downtown on Grace Avenue in Panama City was ordered closed for rodent activity and cleared by 4:47 p.m. Bistrology LLC on US Highway 98 West in Miramar Beach drew the same finding and reopened at 4:01 p.m.
Havana Bistro and Café on South Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando was closed for rodent activity and reopened before 9:10 a.m., one of the earliest clearances of the week.
Cocos El Memo 5431 on Arlington Road in Jacksonville was the week's outlier among the August 21 closures: inspectors cited sewage leaks, not pests. The restaurant reopened at 4:17 p.m.
El Patio Bistro on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami was closed the same day for unlicensed activity, meaning inspectors determined the operation was running without a valid license. No reopening time is on record.
Tuesday and Monday: The Week Builds
August 20 brought seven more closures, with South Florida accounting for most of them.
Eat and Run Subs on North Miami Avenue in North Miami Beach was closed for both roach and rodent activity simultaneously and cleared by 8:46 a.m. Finding both insects and rodents in the same inspection is relatively uncommon and signals a facility with multiple active infestation vectors.
El Machetico on NW 25th Street in Doral was closed for roach activity and reopened by 9:40 a.m. Moonlite Diner on North Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale drew the same finding and was cleared by 1:12 p.m., a notably longer remediation window than most facilities that day.
El Encuentro Restaurant LLC on Lake Worth Road in Palm Springs was closed for rodent activity and reopened at 11:13 a.m. Chill N Kendall Place on SW 107th Avenue in Miami was shut for fly activity and back open by 2:36 p.m.
Garden Street Bistro on South 3rd Street in Fernandina Beach was closed for roach activity and cleared before 10 a.m.
August 19 opened the week with eight closures, touching both coasts and the Keys.
Boardwalk Bar and Grill Inc on Avenue A in Big Pine Key was closed for rodent activity and reopened at 9:43 a.m. A bar and grill in the Lower Keys with an active rodent problem sits alongside one of the state's most ecologically sensitive waterways.
Seph Restaurant and Bakery on NE 163rd Street in North Miami Beach was closed for rodent activity and cleared by 12:30 p.m., the latest reopening of the August 19 group. CM Chicken, also on NE 163rd Street in North Miami Beach just blocks away, was closed the same morning for both roach and rodent activity. No reopening time is listed for CM Chicken, and no URL is on record.
Two restaurants on NE 163rd Street in North Miami Beach closed the same morning for pest activity, one of them with no documented reopening.
Temak House Sushi Fusion on International Drive in Orlando was closed for roach activity and cleared by 10:21 a.m. Licking South Beach on Washington Avenue in Miami Beach was shuttered for roaches and reopened at 10:52 a.m.
Cooper on PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens was closed for both roach and fly activity and reopened at 10:42 a.m. Rocamar Restaurant on South 21st Street in Fort Pierce was cited for roach activity and cleared by 10:18 a.m.
Jerk Island Take Out Rest on West 45th Street in West Palm Beach was closed for roach activity and reopened at 8:29 a.m., the earliest clearance of the week's opening day. Bbee's Home Cooking Inc on Sanford Avenue in Sanford was closed for rodent activity and cleared by 8:06 a.m., the earliest reopening of the entire week.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity, the most common closure trigger this week, is not simply a cleanliness citation. Cockroaches carry pathogens including Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria on their bodies and legs, depositing them on food contact surfaces, utensils, and open food as they move through a kitchen. At Sushi Masa Premium in Tampa and Temak House Sushi Fusion in Orlando, that risk is compounded by the fact that both restaurants serve raw fish, where any bacterial contamination introduced after the fish leaves refrigeration cannot be eliminated by cooking.
Rodent activity carries a distinct and in some ways more serious risk profile. Rodents leave droppings, urine, and hair in areas they travel through, and those areas frequently include food storage, dry goods shelving, and the spaces behind refrigeration units. At Eat and Run Subs in North Miami Beach, inspectors found both roaches and rodents active simultaneously, meaning contamination pathways were running in parallel.
Fly activity, which drove closures at Panera Bread in Jacksonville, Dunkin' Donuts in Ocala, and Chill N Kendall Place in Miami, is particularly acute in food environments because flies feed on waste and then land on exposed food and food contact surfaces within the same facility. The speed of the Panera and Dunkin' reopenings, under an hour each, suggests the fly presence was addressed rapidly, but it also raises the question of what conditions allowed flies to reach closure-level density in a nationally operated chain kitchen.
The two non-pest closures this week represent separate categories of risk. The sewage leak at Cocos El Memo 5431 in Jacksonville is a direct contamination threat: raw sewage introduced into a food preparation environment can carry Hepatitis A, norovirus, and multiple bacterial pathogens. El Patio Bistro in Miami was closed for unlicensed activity, which means the state had no current record of the facility meeting minimum operational standards, and no valid license on file to tie the business to its inspection history.
The Longer Record
North Miami Beach was the week's most concentrated trouble spot, with three closures in three days. Two of them, Seph Restaurant and Bakery and CM Chicken, sit within blocks of each other on NE 163rd Street and were both closed on the same morning. That corridor's inspection history warrants attention: Eat and Run Subs, the third North Miami Beach closure, was cited for the most serious pest combination of the week, roaches and rodents together, and was cleared in under two hours.
The chain closures this week are notable because national brands operate with corporate food safety programs, regional managers, and standardized kitchen protocols that independent restaurants typically do not have. Longhorn Steakhouse, Panera Bread, and Dunkin' Donuts were all emergency-closed on the same day, August 21. The presence of roaches at a Longhorn Steakhouse and flies at a Panera and a Dunkin' suggests that corporate oversight did not prevent conditions that inspectors classified as an immediate public health threat.
Boardwalk Bar and Grill in Big Pine Key and Crab Trap in Pensacola both operate in waterfront tourism environments where pest pressure from the surrounding environment is constant. Both cleared inspections the same day they were closed. The question inspectors cannot answer in a single follow-up visit is how long the pest activity had been present before the day of closure.
CM Chicken on NE 163rd Street in North Miami Beach was closed August 19 for both roach and rodent activity. No reopening time appears in the state record for that location.
