FT. LAUDERDALE, FL. State inspectors ordered the Longhorn Steakhouse of Cypress Creek at 6225 N Andrews Ave closed on August 21, 2026, after documenting roach activity severe enough to trigger an emergency shutdown order requiring the restaurant to vacate the same day.
The restaurant was allowed to reopen later that afternoon. Records show the follow-up inspection, completed the same day, found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, clearing the location to resume service at 4:23 p.m.
What Inspectors Found on August 21
The closure itself was triggered by roach activity, but the inspection that morning documented three additional high-severity violations alongside the pest finding. Inspectors cited the restaurant for failing to properly use time as a public health control, for having no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, and for improperly storing or labeling toxic chemicals.
The fourth violation, classified as intermediate, involved single-use items being reused, a practice that creates contamination risk through items designed to be discarded after one use.
The restaurant passed its same-day follow-up inspection with no remaining violations at any severity level.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity is one of a small number of conditions Florida law treats as an immediate threat to public health, warranting closure without a warning period. Live roaches in a food preparation environment can carry pathogens including Salmonella and E. coli, depositing them on food-contact surfaces, equipment, and food itself. The risk is not theoretical: a single roach moving across a prep surface or through stored product can contaminate food served to dozens of customers before anyone notices.
The chemical storage violation adds a separate layer of risk. When toxic cleaning agents or pesticides are stored near or above food, a spill, a mislabeled container, or a simple mistake by a staff member can introduce a poisonous substance directly into food or onto surfaces that touch food. Acute chemical poisoning from this type of contamination can be severe and fast-acting.
The time-as-public-health-control violation is less visible to customers but equally serious. Florida allows restaurants to hold certain foods without refrigeration if they track how long those foods have been out and discard them within a defined window. When that tracking breaks down, food that has been sitting at unsafe temperatures for an unknown length of time can remain in service, creating a bacterial growth risk that temperature records would normally catch.
The consumer advisory violation is the most straightforward of the four. Longhorn Steakhouse serves steaks cooked to customer specification, including rare and medium-rare preparations. Without a printed advisory on the menu, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or caring for young children have no way of knowing they are ordering food that carries an elevated risk of foodborne illness.
The Longer Record
The August 21 closure was not the first time state regulators forced this location to shut down. Records show the Cypress Creek Longhorn has one prior emergency closure on record, making the August shutdown its second in the facility's documented history.
Across 25 inspections on record, the location has accumulated 115 total violations. That works out to an average of more than four and a half violations per inspection visit, a rate that reflects a facility inspectors have returned to repeatedly.
The recent inspection history shows a pattern of high-severity findings that predates August by nearly two years. Inspectors documented two high-severity violations in December 2024, three in January 2026, three on October 31, 2025, and two in July 2025. In none of those visits did the high-severity count reach zero.
The week before the closure is notable on its own. An inspection on August 14, one week before the shutdown, found two high-severity and two intermediate violations. A follow-up on August 15 cleared those findings. Then, six days later, inspectors returned and found the roach activity that closed the restaurant. The location passed clean in the third visit of that nine-day stretch, on the afternoon of August 21.
What the record does not show is a sustained stretch without serious findings. Going back through every inspection in the dataset, every visit that produced a result produced at least two high-severity violations. The August 21 closure was the most serious consequence to date, but it arrived at a location that had already been cited for high-severity violations in each of the prior seven inspections on record.
The restaurant reopened the afternoon of August 21. Whether the conditions that produced a second emergency closure in this location's history have been resolved beyond that single follow-up inspection remains an open question the record does not yet answer.
