KEY WEST, FL. State inspectors ordered New York Pasta Garden at 1075 Duval Street shut down on August 11 after documenting active roach and fly activity inside the restaurant, the third emergency closure at the address since April 2024.
The facility was ordered vacated by August 12. It reopened the same day, after a follow-up inspection cleared it to resume service.
What Inspectors Found
New York Pasta Garden: Recent Inspection Severity
The August 11 inspection produced nine high-severity violations and four intermediate ones, the most serious single-day tally at the restaurant in the inspection data on record. The pest activity that triggered the closure was not an isolated finding. Inspectors also cited inadequate handwashing by food employees, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled.
The intermediate violations cited that same day included improper sewage or wastewater disposal and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
That is a lot of serious problems documented in a single visit. But the follow-up inspection the next morning, the one that cleared the restaurant to reopen, still showed three high-severity violations and two intermediate ones.
What These Violations Mean
Roach and fly activity in a commercial kitchen is not a housekeeping failure. It is a direct contamination pathway. Insects travel between drains, garbage, and raw food surfaces, depositing bacteria including salmonella and E. coli with each contact. A customer eating a dish prepared on a surface a roach crossed hours earlier has no way of knowing that exposure occurred.
The handwashing violation compounds that risk. Inspectors classify inadequate handwashing as the single most significant factor in spreading foodborne illness, because hands transfer contamination from surfaces, raw proteins, and waste directly onto food that will be served. When pest activity and handwashing failures appear in the same inspection, the contamination routes multiply.
The chemical storage violation adds a separate and acute risk. Improperly stored or unlabeled toxic chemicals near food preparation areas can cause poisoning through direct contamination or through mislabeling. A cleaning agent stored next to a food ingredient is not a paperwork problem.
The sewage violation is the one that connects most directly to the restaurant's prior closure history. Improper sewage or wastewater disposal creates the possibility of fecal contamination throughout a facility. Inspectors cited the same category, sewage and fly activity together, when they closed New York Pasta Garden in April 2024.
The Longer Record
New York Pasta Garden has 39 inspections on record and 722 total violations documented across that history. That volume places it in a category that goes well beyond the routine accumulation of minor citations.
The facility's first emergency closure on record came April 16, 2024, for sewage issues and fly activity. It reopened the following day. Less than 16 months later, in August 2025, the inspection record shows a two-day sequence: six high-severity violations on August 12, followed by a reinspection on August 13 that still found two high-severity and three intermediate violations. That sequence did not result in a formal closure order in the data, but the August 2025 pattern closely mirrors what happened this month.
This August's closure is the third emergency action at the address since April 2024. Each of the three has involved pest activity. Two of the three have involved sewage or fly citations specifically.
The inspection cadence tells its own story. The restaurant was inspected in February 2026, then again in June 2026, and both visits produced three high-severity violations. Neither triggered a closure. The August 11 visit, just two months after June's inspection, found nine.
The gap between June and August is not explained in the inspection data. What the record does show is that the restaurant cleared the August 12 follow-up with three high-severity violations still on the books, meaning it reopened with serious unresolved findings still documented.
After the Reopening
The restaurant was cleared to reopen at 12:11 p.m. on August 12. The follow-up inspection that authorized that reopening found three high-severity violations and two intermediate ones still present.
State protocol allows reopening when the specific violations that triggered the emergency closure have been resolved, even if other violations remain. Whether those three remaining high-severity violations have since been addressed is not reflected in the data available.
New York Pasta Garden has been licensed for permanent food service. It has now been emergency-closed three times in 28 months.
