PANAMA CITY, FL. State inspectors ordered Rosemary-N-Thyme LLC at 22 Oak Ave shut down on May 5, 2026, after documenting live roach and fly activity inside the restaurant, records show. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation required the facility to vacate by May 6, though the restaurant was back open the same day the closure order was issued, records indicate, with a confirmed reopen time of 1:28 p.m.
The closure was not the result of a single stray insect. Inspectors cited both roach and fly activity as the triggering conditions, a combination that meets the threshold for an emergency shutdown under state food safety rules.
What Inspectors Found
Live roach activity and fly activity were both documented by inspectors on May 5, 2026, prompting the emergency shutdown order.
The inspection record does not specify exact roach counts or precise locations within the kitchen, but the dual finding of roaches and flies was sufficient under Florida law to close the restaurant immediately. Pest activity of this type is not treated as a minor citation.
The facility was ordered vacated by May 6. It reopened at 1:28 p.m. on May 5, meaning inspectors conducted a follow-up review and determined the restaurant had addressed the violations within hours of the closure order.
What This Means
Live roaches inside a food service operation are among the most serious violations an inspector can document. Cockroaches carry bacteria including Salmonella and E. coli on their bodies and legs, and they move freely between waste areas and food preparation surfaces. A customer eating food prepared in a kitchen with active roach activity has no way of knowing that surfaces or ingredients have been contaminated.
Fly activity compounds the risk. Flies feed on decaying organic matter and carry pathogens on their bodies, then land on exposed food, prep surfaces, and utensils. A single fly landing on a plate or cutting board can transfer enough bacteria to cause illness. When inspectors document both roach and fly activity in the same facility on the same visit, it signals a pest control failure that is not isolated to one corner of the kitchen.
Florida law allows inspectors to issue an emergency closure order, without advance warning, when they determine that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health. The presence of live roaches and flies in an active food service environment meets that standard. The closure order at Rosemary-N-Thyme was consistent with how the state applies that authority.
The speed of the reopening, within hours of the closure order, suggests the facility responded quickly. But a same-day reopening also means the underlying conditions that allowed pest activity to develop, gaps in sanitation, entry points for insects, inadequate pest control service, had to be addressed in a very compressed window.
The Longer Record
The inspection history for Rosemary-N-Thyme LLC presents an unusual picture. State records show zero prior inspections on file, zero prior violations, and zero prior emergency closures before May 5, 2026.
That absence of history makes it difficult to say whether the pest activity inspectors found was a sudden development or something that had been building undetected. A facility with dozens of prior inspections and a clean record tells one story. A facility with no prior inspection record at all tells a different one, and the record here does not resolve which applies.
What the record does confirm is that the May 5 closure was the first enforcement action the state has documented against this location. There is no prior pattern of roach citations, no prior fly activity write-ups, no escalating violation counts to point to. The closure stands alone in the data.
That is not necessarily reassuring. Pest infestations do not develop overnight. Roaches establish themselves in walls, under equipment, and in drains over time. The fact that inspectors found active roach and fly activity significant enough to warrant an emergency shutdown on what appears to be an early inspection visit raises a question the available records do not answer: how long had conditions existed before an inspector walked through the door.
What Comes Next
Rosemary-N-Thyme LLC reopened May 5 at 1:28 p.m., and the state's records reflect that the facility met the standards required to resume operations. Whether a follow-up inspection has been conducted since that date, and what it found, is not reflected in the current data.
Florida's inspection system does not guarantee that a facility passing a follow-up inspection has fully resolved the root causes of a pest problem. A follow-up visit confirms that conditions at that moment meet minimum standards. It does not confirm that pest control treatments were comprehensive, that entry points were sealed, or that the sanitation practices that allowed the problem to develop have been permanently changed.
The restaurant is licensed for food service operations, and it was open as of the afternoon of May 5. Whether it has received any additional inspections since the closure, and what those inspections documented, remains an open question in the public record.