PASCO COUNTY, FL. A Tampa bar and restaurant that has been emergency-closed by state inspectors five times before was shut down again for roach activity on September 28, the most documented repeat-closure case in a two-week stretch that saw seven Pasco County restaurants ordered off limits for pest infestations.
Pisco Bar and Restaurant at 7507 N Armenia Ave has now been closed by the state six times on record. Inspectors found roach activity during the September 28 visit and the restaurant was permitted to reopen the same morning at 10:43 a.m.
The six closures at Pisco Bar represent the longest documented closure history of any facility in this period's roundup, but it was not the only location with a pattern.
The Violations
Tavern at Cheval at 4312 Cheval Blvd in Lutz was closed September 24 for both roach and fly activity. It was the restaurant's fourth closure on record.
The Lutz tavern and Pisco Bar are the only two facilities in this period designated as repeat offenders, meaning each has been emergency-closed at least twice before at the same address.
Bella's Italian Café at 1413 S Howard St was closed the day before, on September 23, also for roaches and flies. Bella's sits on one of Tampa's busiest restaurant corridors, a stretch of South Howard Avenue known locally as SoHo.
Bagelicious and More at 11147 County Line Rd in Spring Hill was also closed September 23, for roach and fly activity. Inspectors cleared it to reopen that same morning at 8:57 a.m., the earliest reopening of any facility in this period.
Pepo's Café at 3879 Northdale Blvd in Tampa was closed October 1 for roach activity and reopened that afternoon at 2:42 p.m.
Perry's BBQ Asian Grill, located inside the Citrus Park Town Center Mall food court at 8015 Citrus Park Town Center Mall FC-3 in Tampa, was closed September 30 for roach activity and cleared to reopen at 2:43 p.m. the same day. No prior closure record was available for the location.
Sonic #5080 at 7449 Gall Blvd in Zephyrhills was the only facility in this period closed for both roach and rodent activity, the broadest combination of pest evidence documented across all seven closures. Inspectors allowed it to reopen September 24 at 3:14 p.m.
What These Violations Mean
Every closure in this two-week period was triggered by live pest activity, a category that state inspectors treat as an immediate public health threat requiring emergency action rather than a warning or a follow-up visit. The standard is not whether a pest was seen near the dining room. Inspectors are documenting roaches in food preparation and storage areas, where direct contamination of food surfaces and ingredients is the risk.
Cockroaches carry and shed bacteria including Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria. They move between sewage, drains, trash, and food contact surfaces without any visible break in the contamination chain. A customer who ate at Pisco Bar, Tavern at Cheval, Bella's Italian Café, or Bagelicious and More on the days before inspectors arrived had no way of knowing roaches had been documented in the same kitchen.
The combination of roaches and flies, found at Tavern at Cheval, Bella's Italian Café, and Bagelicious and More, compounds that risk. Flies are direct vectors for contamination: they land on waste, then on food, and the transfer is immediate. At a food service facility, fly activity in prep areas is not incidental.
Sonic #5080 in Zephyrhills presents the most layered pest concern in this period. Rodent droppings or activity, when found alongside roach evidence, indicate an infestation that has established itself across multiple species, which typically reflects a longer-standing sanitation or structural problem than a single insect sighting.
The Pattern
Pisco Bar and Restaurant on N Armenia Ave has now been emergency-closed by state inspectors six documented times. The September 28 closure for roach activity is the latest entry in a record that stretches back through five prior closures at the same address. Each time, inspectors found conditions serious enough to pull the license. Each time, the restaurant corrected enough to reopen. The pattern at Pisco Bar is not a single bad inspection. It is a recurring one.
Tavern at Cheval in Lutz carries a similar structure. Three prior closures preceded the September 24 shutdown for roaches and flies. A full-service restaurant inside the Cheval residential community, the tavern has now been emergency-closed four times on record.
The five remaining facilities, Bella's Italian Café, Bagelicious and More, Pepo's Café, Perry's BBQ Asian Grill, and Sonic #5080, had no prior closures listed in the available data for this period. For those locations, the September and October closures represent a first documented emergency action, though the absence of a prior closure record does not mean prior inspections found no violations.
The Longer Record
The two repeat-offender closures in this period sit at opposite ends of the county's geography but share the same basic arc: inspectors have been to both addresses before for the same category of violation, conditions were corrected enough to reopen, and the problem returned. Pisco Bar's six-closure record is the most extensive in this roundup by a significant margin.
For the five facilities without prior closure records, the data available for this period does not include full inspection histories beyond closure counts, so it is not possible to say whether prior visits flagged pest evidence that fell short of triggering a closure order.
All seven facilities were permitted to reopen on the same day inspectors closed them, with reopening times ranging from 8:57 a.m. at Bagelicious and More to 4:01 p.m. at Bella's Italian Café. Same-day reopening means inspectors returned, found the immediate conditions corrected, and lifted the emergency order.
Pisco Bar and Restaurant on N Armenia Ave has been closed by the state six times and reopened six times. The record does not show what changed between closures to prevent the next one.
