Live roaches triggered an emergency shutdown at a Tampa restaurant on Citrus Park Drive

TAMPA, FL. State inspectors ordered Momoz LLC on Citrus Park Drive shut down on May 11, 2026, after documenting roach activity inside the restaurant, triggering an emergency closure that gave the facility until May 14 to vacate.

The closure was not the result of a single stray insect. Roach activity, as inspectors document it, describes a finding significant enough to warrant pulling a restaurant's right to serve customers immediately, without a warning period or a grace window to correct the problem first.

What Inspectors Found

The inspection record for Momoz LLC at 8009 Citrus Park Dr lists roach activity as the violation that ended operations that Monday. Under Florida's food safety enforcement framework, roach activity is classified as a high-priority violation, one that inspectors can use as sole grounds for an emergency closure order.

The facility was licensed for food service at the time of the closure. That matters because it means the shutdown was not a licensing technicality. Inspectors found a condition they judged to be an immediate threat to public health and acted on it.

The state's order gave the restaurant until May 14 to vacate the premises. Records show the facility reopened at 9:40 a.m., though the specific date of that reopening is not confirmed in the available data.

What This Means

Roaches are not a passive contamination risk. They move between surfaces, food contact areas, and waste without stopping, and they carry bacteria including Salmonella and E. coli on their bodies and in their droppings. A customer eating at a restaurant with active roach presence is eating in a space where those pathogens can transfer to food, prep surfaces, utensils, and plates at any point in the service process.

Florida inspectors do not issue emergency closure orders for every pest-related citation. A single roach spotted near a back door may generate a violation that requires a follow-up inspection. Roach activity, as a closure trigger, reflects a finding that the infestation is present and active at a level that makes continued food service an immediate hazard.

The distinction is important. Customers who ate at Momoz LLC in the days before the May 11 closure had no way of knowing the condition inspectors documented that day. Emergency closures become public record only after they happen.

There is also a secondary risk that inspectors consider when roaches are present: if the infestation is active in food storage or prep areas, it raises the question of whether food that was already prepared, plated, or sold had been in contact with contaminated surfaces. That question does not get answered in a closure order. It is answered, if at all, only if someone reports getting sick.

The Longer Record

The state's inspection database shows zero prior inspections on record for Momoz LLC at this address. No prior violations. No prior emergency closures.

That absence of history cuts two ways. It means there is no documented pattern of neglect, no prior warnings ignored, no escalating record of citations that went unaddressed. This closure cannot be described as the end of a long paper trail.

It also means there is no prior record to reassure customers. A restaurant with 40 inspections and a clean recent history offers something a brand-new entry in the database cannot: evidence of how it performs over time, across different inspectors, across different seasons. Momoz LLC has none of that on file.

The first time state inspectors visited this address and documented what they found, the finding was serious enough to close the restaurant.

What Comes Next

Florida's emergency closure process requires a facility to correct the conditions that triggered the shutdown before it can reopen. For roach activity, that means professional pest control treatment, a cleaning of affected areas, and a follow-up inspection by a state inspector who must verify the problem has been resolved.

Records indicate the facility did reopen at 9:40 a.m. The date attached to that reopening time is not specified in the available data. It is not confirmed whether the reopening occurred on May 12, May 13, or May 14, the last day the vacate order allowed.

What is confirmed: the restaurant was closed by state order on May 11 for roach activity, and the reopening time logged in state records is 9:40 a.m. Whether that clock started on a day when the conditions inspectors found had been fully resolved is a question the follow-up inspection report would answer. That report was not available at the time of publication.