HAINES CITY, FL. State inspectors walked into Maryland Fried Chicken/Rice Bowl on East Hinson Avenue on August 12 and found what it took to shut a restaurant down on the spot: roach activity, rodent activity, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ordered the 904 E Hinson Ave. restaurant vacated by August 14. Inspectors documented five high-severity violations and three intermediate violations during that single visit, the worst single-day tally the facility has produced in recent years.
The restaurant cleared a follow-up inspection on August 14, recording only one remaining high-severity violation, and reopened at 10:21 a.m. that same day.
What Inspectors Found
The closure order cited both roach and rodent activity, meaning inspectors found evidence of two separate pest problems active in the facility at the same time. That combination, rather than either pest alone, is what triggered the emergency shutdown.
The August 12 inspection also flagged toxic chemicals that were improperly stored or labeled. The state's follow-up visit on August 14 recorded one remaining high-severity violation before the restaurant was cleared to reopen. The data does not specify which violation remained unresolved at that point.
What This Means
Roaches and rodents in a food service environment are not a maintenance problem. They are a disease transmission problem. Both species carry pathogens, including Salmonella and E. coli, and deposit them on food contact surfaces, prep areas, and the food itself. A customer eating at a restaurant with active roach and rodent activity has no way of knowing their meal was prepared in a contaminated environment.
The toxic chemical violation adds a separate and distinct risk. When cleaning agents, pesticides, or other chemicals are stored without proper labels or placed near food, the path to contamination is short. Mislabeled containers have caused acute poisoning events in food service settings when workers mistake a chemical for a food ingredient or a cleaning solution contaminates an adjacent surface. The state treats this as a high-severity violation precisely because the harm, if it occurs, is immediate.
That both violations appeared in the same inspection, alongside three intermediate violations, reflects a facility that was not in marginal compliance on August 12. It was operating with multiple simultaneous serious failures.
The Pattern
This was not the first time Maryland Fried Chicken/Rice Bowl has been emergency-closed. State records show the facility has one prior emergency closure on record before August 12, making this its second forced shutdown across 27 total inspections.
The inspection history going back to 2023 shows a facility that has never fully stabilized. In November 2023, inspectors found zero high-severity violations, the only clean visit in recent years. That was followed in April 2025 by one high-severity and one intermediate violation, then two high-severity violations in December 2024, two more high-severity and one intermediate in September 2025, and three high-severity violations in March 2026.
By May 2026, just three months before the closure, inspectors had already flagged one high-severity violation. The facility did not correct course before August.
The Longer Record
Across 27 inspections, Maryland Fried Chicken/Rice Bowl has accumulated 97 total violations. That is an average of roughly 3.6 violations per inspection visit, and the August 12 tally of eight violations, five of them high-severity, sits well above that average.
The prior emergency closure, combined with this one, means the facility has now been ordered shut twice by state regulators. A single emergency closure in a long inspection history can reflect an isolated bad day. Two closures, set against a record of persistent high-severity findings in the years between them, describe something else.
The gap between the November 2023 clean inspection and every visit since is notable. Seven consecutive inspections after that date each produced at least one high-severity violation. The facility has not recorded a zero-high-severity result in nearly three years.
One high-severity violation remained on the books when inspectors cleared the restaurant to reopen on August 14. What that violation was, and whether it has since been resolved, is not confirmed in the inspection record.
