MIAMI, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors ordered Moshi Moshi on Biscayne Boulevard shut down after finding live roach activity inside the restaurant, the third emergency closure the Biscayne Boulevard sushi spot has faced in its documented inspection history.
The closure order came on April 14. The restaurant was given until April 15 to vacate, and it did reopen that same day at 12:25 p.m., after a follow-up inspection cleared the immediate roach concern.
What Inspectors Found
Moshi Moshi: Recent Inspection History
The closure-triggering violation on April 14 was roach activity, the same finding that prompted the restaurant's first documented emergency closure nearly a decade earlier. Inspectors cited five high-severity violations and four intermediate violations during that same April 14 visit.
The follow-up inspection on April 15 found three remaining high-severity violations, including food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, the absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. An intermediate violation for inadequate ventilation and lighting also remained when the restaurant was cleared to reopen.
That is not a clean bill of health.
The Violations That Remained at Reopening
The food contact surface violation is among the most consequential findings on the April 15 report. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and utensils that are not properly sanitized between uses become direct transfer points for bacteria, including salmonella and E. coli, from raw proteins to ready-to-eat food. At a restaurant serving sushi and raw fish, that pathway is especially short.
The missing consumer advisory is a separate concern. Florida requires restaurants serving raw or undercooked animal products, including sushi and sashimi, to post a notice warning customers of the associated health risks. Without it, elderly diners, pregnant women, young children, and anyone with a compromised immune system have no way of knowing they are ordering food that carries a higher risk of foodborne illness.
The improperly stored toxic chemicals finding is the most acute of the three. Cleaning agents and other chemicals stored near food or without proper labeling can cause direct contamination of food and acute poisoning. Mislabeled containers are a documented cause of accidental chemical ingestion in food service settings.
All three of those violations were present when the restaurant was allowed to reopen.
The Longer Record
Moshi Moshi has 28 inspections on record and 247 total violations documented across its history, an average of nearly nine violations per inspection. That figure includes two prior emergency closures before April 2026, one of which, on October 11, 2016, was also triggered by roach activity. That closure lasted one day before the restaurant was cleared to reopen on October 12, 2016.
The pattern in the months immediately before the April 2026 closure is worth examining. The December 19, 2025 inspection produced six high-severity and three intermediate violations, the worst single inspection in the recent record. The restaurant then ran two consecutive clean inspections in late June and early July 2025, zero high-severity violations on both visits, before violations began accumulating again in the spring.
That oscillation, serious violations followed by clean inspections followed by serious violations again, appears more than once in the recent history. The April 2025 inspection sequence shows four high-severity violations on April 23 reduced to one on April 24, a pattern nearly identical in shape to the April 2026 closure and same-day reopening.
The November 2024 inspection found three high-severity violations. The two clean inspections in mid-2025 came between that finding and the December 2025 spike. The restaurant has not sustained a clean stretch long enough to break the cycle.
What This Means
An emergency closure for roach activity is not issued for a single roach spotted near a doorway. State inspectors order emergency shutdowns when the pest presence is significant enough to represent an immediate public health threat, meaning active roach activity in areas where food is prepared, stored, or served.
Cockroaches are vectors for pathogens including salmonella, E. coli, and listeria. They spread bacteria by moving between waste and food surfaces, and their presence in a kitchen is a direct contamination risk for every dish prepared there.
The fact that Moshi Moshi was closed for roach activity in 2016, operated for nearly a decade, and was then closed for roach activity again in 2026 raises a straightforward question the inspection record does not answer: what changed between the 2016 remediation and the conditions inspectors found on April 14, 2026.
When the restaurant reopened on the afternoon of April 15, three high-severity violations were still listed as unresolved on the inspection report.