PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL. A Pompano Beach takeout restaurant has now been emergency-closed by state inspectors five times, the most of any facility in a two-week stretch that saw nine Palm Beach County restaurants shuttered between September 10 and September 23, 2026.
Au Bon Gout Take Out Restaurant on N Dixie Highway was closed September 15 for rodent activity. It is the fourth prior closure on record for that address, making the September 15 action the fifth emergency shutdown in the facility's documented history. It reopened the same day at 12:08 p.m.
Seven of the nine closures were triggered by pest activity. Roaches and rodents were found at multiple locations across Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Lake Worth, and Deerfield Beach. Five of the nine facilities had been closed at least once before at the same address.
What Inspectors Found
On September 17, inspectors closed Deck 84 on E Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach for a combination of roach and rodent activity. That waterfront restaurant, a well-known destination on Delray Beach's main dining corridor, did not reopen until 2:52 p.m. the same day. It was the third emergency closure on record for that address.
Also on September 17, state inspectors shut down two separate facilities sharing an address at 4476 Fountains Drive in Lake Worth. Fountains Country Club Main Dining Room was closed for rodent activity and cleared to reopen at 8:52 a.m. The Pub at the same address was closed for the same reason and reopened at 9:10 a.m. Both appear to be first-time closures at their respective license numbers.
Shanghai 818 on Glades Road in Boca Raton was closed September 16 for roach and rodent activity, its third emergency closure on record. Inspectors cleared it to reopen at 3:18 p.m.
Pizzapiez on SE 10th Street in Deerfield Beach was closed September 15 for rodent activity and reopened at 12:32 p.m. No prior closures are on record for that location.
Two closures during the period stand out for reasons beyond pest activity.
IHOP 36-157 on Belvedere Road in West Palm Beach was shuttered September 10 after inspectors documented a sewage backup. That closure lasted the longest of any in the period, with the franchise location not cleared to reopen until 3:57 p.m. It was the third closure on record for that address.
Rivales Taqueria and Craft Bar on N Olive Avenue in West Palm Beach was closed September 14 for having no warewashing facilities available. It reopened at 9:20 a.m. the following morning. That closure was also the third on record for that location.
One closure in the dataset falls outside Palm Beach County entirely. Oodle Ramen and More on Conroy Road is listed with an Orlando address and was closed September 15 for fly activity, reopening at 2:31 p.m. No prior closures are on record for that facility.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity in a food service facility is not a housekeeping problem. Rodents carry Salmonella, Leptospira, and Hantavirus, and they contaminate surfaces, food packaging, and food itself through droppings, urine, and direct contact. When inspectors close a restaurant for rodent activity, it means evidence of active infestation was present during food service hours, not merely near a dumpster outside.
Roach infestations carry a parallel risk. Cockroaches move between drains, garbage, and food prep surfaces, transferring bacteria including E. coli and Salmonella directly onto utensils and ingredients. The combined roach and rodent findings at Deck 84 in Delray Beach and Shanghai 818 in Boca Raton placed both facilities in the most serious pest category inspectors document.
The sewage backup at the West Palm Beach IHOP represents a different category of hazard. Raw sewage contains fecal coliform bacteria and norovirus. When wastewater backs up into a kitchen or dining area, any food or surface it contacts becomes a direct transmission route for gastrointestinal illness. A backup severe enough to trigger an emergency closure means the contamination was not contained to a single drain.
The closure of Rivales Taqueria for no warewashing facilities may appear less alarming than a pest infestation, but the health consequence is the same class of risk. Without functioning warewashing equipment, dishes, utensils, and food contact surfaces cannot be sanitized between uses. Bacteria from raw proteins transfer directly to ready-to-eat food on the next plate.
The Longer Record
Five of the nine facilities closed during this period had been through emergency closures at the same address before. That concentration of repeat closures in a single two-week period is the most significant pattern in the data.
Au Bon Gout Take Out Restaurant on N Dixie Highway in Pompano Beach carries the heaviest documented history. Four prior closures on record before September 15 means the facility has now been emergency-closed five times. Each prior closure and each reopening represents a cycle that the September 15 rodent finding interrupted again.
Deck 84, Shanghai 818, Rivales Taqueria, and the West Palm Beach IHOP each carry two prior closures on record, making September's actions their third. At Deck 84, a restaurant with a high-profile address on Delray Beach's Atlantic Avenue dining strip, the roach and rodent finding this month follows a pattern that state records show stretching back at least two prior closure events. At Shanghai 818, the third closure for roach and rodent activity at the same Boca Raton address indicates the infestation has not been resolved at the structural level between visits.
The two Fountains Drive facilities in Lake Worth, Pizzapiez in Deerfield Beach, and Oodle Ramen in Orlando show no prior closures in the data, making their September findings first-time emergency actions. For the Fountains Country Club Main Dining Room, a private club dining facility, the rodent closure is the first on record.
Rivales Taqueria on N Olive Avenue in West Palm Beach has now been closed three times, and its most recent closure for no warewashing facilities came the day before it was allowed to reopen. The facility's third closure in its documented history for an infrastructure failure rather than a pest problem raises a question the inspection record alone cannot answer: whether the warewashing equipment was absent, broken, or simply not functioning at the time of inspection.
The West Palm Beach IHOP on Belvedere Road, a franchise location of a national chain with corporate oversight, recorded its third emergency closure on September 10 for sewage backup. Of all nine closures in this period, it had the latest reopening time, 3:57 p.m., suggesting the remediation took longer than any other facility required.
