TAMPA, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors ordered Ha Long Bay on Bruce B Downs Blvd shut down after finding roach activity inside the restaurant, the third time in the facility's documented history that inspectors had seen enough to pull its license on the spot.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ordered the restaurant at 20685 Bruce B Downs Blvd vacated by March 6, 2026. Inspectors also cited one high-priority violation and three intermediate violations during the closure inspection on March 5.
The high-priority finding was that food contact surfaces had not been properly cleaned or sanitized.
What Inspectors Found
Ha Long Bay: Recent Inspection History
The March 5 inspection documented roach activity severe enough for inspectors to order the restaurant closed under emergency authority. The simultaneous finding that food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized compounded the concern, placing two serious vectors for contamination in the same kitchen at the same time.
A follow-up inspection on the morning of March 6 found one intermediate violation still outstanding but no remaining high-priority violations. A second inspection later that same day cleared the restaurant entirely, and Ha Long Bay was permitted to reopen at 3:35 p.m. on March 6.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity alone is sufficient grounds for an emergency closure under Florida law, and the reason is direct. Live roaches in a food service environment move between drains, garbage, raw food, and the surfaces where food is prepared. They carry bacteria including Salmonella and E. coli on their bodies and deposit it on every surface they cross.
The food contact surface violation found alongside the roach activity at Ha Long Bay on March 5 sharpens that risk considerably. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that are not properly cleaned and sanitized between uses are among the most reliable routes for cross-contamination in a commercial kitchen. When those surfaces are also accessible to roaches, the contamination pathway from pest to plate is direct.
Together, these two violations describe a kitchen where food being prepared for customers could be compromised at multiple points simultaneously. A customer eating a dish prepared on an unsanitized surface that roaches had also contacted would have no way of knowing it.
The Longer Record
The March 2026 closure was not the first time Ha Long Bay had been shut down for roach activity, and it was not the second. State records show the facility has 33 inspections on record, 280 total violations documented across its history, and two prior emergency closures before the one in March.
The first emergency closure at this address came in May 2016, also for roach activity. That closure lasted one day, with the restaurant cleared to reopen on May 13, 2016.
The second closure preceded March 2026 but falls within the facility's documented history. The March 2026 shutdown was the third time inspectors had seen conditions serious enough to order the restaurant vacated.
The inspection record in the year leading up to the March closure tells a consistent story. In April 2025, inspectors visited twice within eleven days. The April 11 visit produced five high-priority violations. The April 22 visit produced three more. In October 2024 and again in August 2024, inspectors documented two high-priority violations each time, alongside intermediate violations on both occasions.
That pattern, five high-priority violations in April 2025, three more eleven days later, and then a third emergency closure less than a year after, describes a facility that has cycled through serious findings without resolving the underlying conditions that produce them.
After the Closure
Ha Long Bay's rapid turnaround in March 2026 followed the same arc as its 2016 closure: shut down one day, cleared the next. The May 2026 inspection, roughly two months after the closure, found one high-priority violation still on record.
A facility with 280 violations across 33 inspections and three emergency closures for the same cause, roach activity, is not a facility that has had a run of bad luck. The record at Ha Long Bay is one of recurring findings in the same category, addressed quickly enough to reopen, and then recurring again.
Whether conditions have stabilized since the May 2026 inspection is not reflected in the available records.