GREEN COVE SPRINGS, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors walked into Hungry Howie's Pizza at 810 N Orange Ave and found what Florida regulators classify as an immediate public health threat: live roach activity inside the restaurant. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ordered the location shut down on March 27, 2026.
The closure was not a warning. It was an emergency order, the kind the state reserves for conditions inspectors determine cannot wait for a scheduled follow-up.
What Inspectors Found
Live roach activity inside the restaurant was the single documented condition that caused state inspectors to order Hungry Howie's shut on March 27, 2026.
The violation that closed the restaurant was roach activity, documented by the inspector during the March 27 visit. State records do not specify an exact roach count or the precise locations where the insects were found inside the 810 N Orange Ave location.
What the records do confirm is that the finding was severe enough to trigger an emergency closure order on the spot. Florida regulators do not issue emergency closures for minor or correctable-on-site violations. The presence of live roaches in a food preparation or storage environment meets the threshold for immediate shutdown.
Roach activity had not been flagged in any prior inspection at this location, because no prior inspections appear in state records at all.
What This Violation Means
Roaches in a restaurant kitchen are not a housekeeping problem. They are a direct contamination vector.
Cockroaches carry bacteria including Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria on their bodies and legs, depositing those pathogens on food surfaces, prep counters, utensils, and stored ingredients as they move through a kitchen. A customer eating food prepared in an environment with active roach activity has no way of knowing what surfaces or ingredients the insects contacted before the meal was assembled.
The reason Florida law authorizes emergency closures for roach activity, rather than a standard citation with a correction window, is the nature of the risk. A roach infestation does not pause while a restaurant schedules a pest control visit. Every hour a kitchen with active roach presence continues to operate is an hour that food being prepared and served to customers is at risk of contamination.
Live roach activity, as opposed to finding a single dead roach or evidence of a past infestation, tells inspectors the problem is ongoing and active at the moment of the visit. That distinction matters under state closure criteria.
The Longer Record
The inspection history for the Hungry Howie's at 810 N Orange Ave presents an unusual picture: state records show zero prior inspections, zero prior violations, and zero prior emergency closures for this location before March 27, 2026.
That absence of history makes it impossible to say whether the roach activity inspectors found in March was the culmination of a slow-building problem that prior visits might have flagged, or whether it represented a sudden and acute infestation at a location that had otherwise maintained clean conditions. There is simply no documented baseline to compare it against.
For facilities with long inspection histories, a closure can often be read in context. A restaurant with 30 inspections and recurring pest citations tells a different story than one where inspectors are finding something for the first time. This location offers no such context.
What can be said is this: the first time state inspectors documented conditions at this Hungry Howie's, those conditions were serious enough to close it.
Reopening Status
As of the available state records, the reopening status of the Hungry Howie's at 810 N Orange Ave in Green Cove Springs has not been confirmed.
After an emergency closure for roach activity, a Florida restaurant must pass a follow-up inspection before it is permitted to reopen. Inspectors return to verify that the pest issue has been addressed, typically through professional extermination, and that no other high-priority violations are present. Only after that clearance can the restaurant resume serving customers.
State records do not show a follow-up inspection result for this location. It is not confirmed whether the restaurant passed reinspection and resumed operations, or whether it remained closed beyond the initial shutdown date.
The March 27, 2026 emergency closure order is the last documented action on file.