WEST PALM BEACH, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors ordered Red Crab - Juicy Seafood on N Military Trail shut down after finding roach activity inside the restaurant, the third time the West Palm Beach location had been emergency-closed for pest problems since 2022.
The closure order was issued on March 5, 2026. The restaurant was required to vacate by March 6.
What Inspectors Found
Red Crab - Juicy Seafood: Closure and Inspection Pattern
The March 5 closure was not the first sign of trouble that week. Three days earlier, on March 2, inspectors had already shut the restaurant down once, citing roach and fly activity alongside five high-severity violations and one intermediate violation. The restaurant reopened on March 3 after a follow-up inspection found conditions had improved, though one high-severity violation remained.
That reopening lasted less than 48 hours before inspectors returned and found roach activity again on March 5, triggering the second closure in four days.
Records from the March 5 inspection also documented two high-severity violations and two intermediate violations beyond the roach activity itself. Those included improper hand and arm washing technique and inadequate shell stock identification and records. The intermediate violations involved single-use items being improperly reused and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity alone is sufficient grounds for an emergency closure under Florida law, and for good reason. Cockroaches travel between sewage, garbage, and food preparation surfaces, depositing bacteria including Salmonella and E. coli along the way. A customer eating food prepared in a cockroach-infested kitchen has no way of knowing what surfaces those insects crossed before the food reached their plate.
The shell stock identification violation compounds that risk in a specific way. Red Crab is a seafood restaurant. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are frequently consumed raw or lightly cooked, meaning any contamination introduced during harvesting or transport is not cooked away. Without proper shell stock tags and records, there is no way to trace a batch of shellfish back to its harvest location if customers become ill. That traceability gap is the difference between a contained outbreak and one that cannot be sourced.
The handwashing technique violation is a different category of failure. An employee who goes through the motion of washing hands but uses improper technique, skipping steps or not scrubbing long enough, leaves pathogens on their hands. The handwashing attempt itself creates a false sense of compliance. At a restaurant already cited for roach activity, that failure closes the loop on how contamination moves from surfaces to food to customers.
Reusing single-use items, the intermediate violation also cited on March 5, adds another transfer point. Gloves, cups, and utensils designed for a single use accumulate bacteria with each reuse. Combined with the other violations documented that day, the inspection painted a picture of multiple contamination pathways operating simultaneously.
The Longer Record
The March 2026 closures were not aberrations. They were the latest entries in a documented pattern stretching back years.
State records show 26 inspections on file for this location, with 154 total violations accumulated across that history. The restaurant has now been emergency-closed three times, all for pest activity, in March 2022, March 2026, and again in March 2026.
The 2022 closure was for roach and rodent activity. That inspection resulted in a closure order on March 22, 2022, with the restaurant allowed to reopen the following day. Four years later, the same category of violation, live roach activity, was triggering closures again.
The inspection record in the months surrounding the March 2026 closures shows the facility was not in a period of improvement. A September 2025 inspection found two high-severity and two intermediate violations. A March 2025 inspection found one high-severity and two intermediate violations. The pattern of high-severity citations was consistent across multiple visits before the back-to-back closures in early March 2026.
A follow-up inspection on March 6 found zero high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations, and the restaurant was allowed to reopen that afternoon at 2:45 p.m.
The most recent inspection in the data, conducted on May 4, 2026, found three high-severity violations and two intermediate violations, including inadequate shell stock identification and records and food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized. That inspection came roughly two months after the restaurant's third emergency closure.