CLEARWATER, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into Pierogi Grill & Steakhouse at 1535 Gulf To Bay Blvd and found what the records describe as roach and rodent activity, enough to order the restaurant shut down on the spot.
The closure was ordered February 11. The restaurant was given until February 12 to vacate. It reopened later that same day at 2:15 p.m., according to state records.
That turnaround was fast. The inspection record that preceded it was not.
What Inspectors Found
Pierogi Grill & Steakhouse: Inspection Pattern Around the February 2026 Closure
The February 11 inspection produced 8 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations, the most serious single-day tally in the restaurant's recent record. The specific trigger, roach and rodent activity found simultaneously inside an operating food service kitchen, is among the conditions Florida law treats as an immediate threat to public health.
Inspectors returned February 12. The restaurant had not yet cleared the bar. Records show 3 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation still on file from that morning visit. A second inspection the same day, the one that allowed the doors to reopen at 2:15 p.m., still documented 4 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation.
The restaurant reopened with high-severity violations still on the books.
What This Means for Customers
Roaches and rodents in a food service kitchen are not a cleanliness citation in the way a dusty fan cover or a cracked floor tile might be. They represent a direct contamination pathway.
Cockroaches carry bacteria including Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria on their bodies and in their droppings. They travel between sewage, garbage, and food preparation surfaces. When inspectors find live roach activity in a kitchen, every surface those roaches have contacted, every open food container, every prep surface, is a potential exposure point for customers who have no way of knowing what happened before their meal was plated.
Rodents compound the risk. Rodent droppings and urine can carry Hantavirus, Salmonella, and Leptospira. Like roaches, rodents move through areas of a kitchen that customers never see, and they do so at night, when no staff is present to observe or respond.
Florida's emergency closure authority exists precisely for findings like this one. The state does not require a restaurant to make customers sick before it can act. The presence of the pest activity itself is treated as sufficient cause to remove a facility from service until the condition is corrected.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 closure was not the first time Pierogi Grill & Steakhouse had been ordered to shut down. It was the fifth.
The earliest closure on record at this location came in December 2018, also for roach activity. The restaurant reopened the following day. In December 2022, inspectors found sewage backup and again ordered the restaurant closed, this time reopening after one day. In June 2024, roach and rodent activity, the same combined finding that triggered the February 2026 closure, shut the restaurant down for three days before it was allowed to reopen.
The 2024 closure and the 2026 closure share an identical violation category. The conditions inspectors documented in June 2024 were corrected, the restaurant passed a clean inspection in May 2025, and then eight months later inspectors found the same problem again.
Across 48 inspections on record, the restaurant has accumulated 582 total violations. That averages more than 12 violations per inspection over its documented history. The February 11, 2026 inspection, with 8 high-severity violations alone, fell well above even that elevated baseline.
What Came After
The months following the February closure tell their own story. A February 24 return visit found 1 high-severity violation still present. An April 16 inspection found 7 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations, the worst single-inspection count since the closure itself, nearly two months after the restaurant had been cleared to reopen.
A May 18 inspection found 3 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation.
It was not until May 28, 2026, more than three months after the emergency closure, that inspectors recorded zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations at the restaurant.
That May 28 inspection is the most recent record available. Whether that clean result holds, or whether it represents another interval between the documented peaks in this restaurant's history, the record does not yet say.