CLEARWATER, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors ordered Sacred Spice Tampa Bay on Ulmerton Road shut down after documenting a sewage backup at the Clearwater restaurant, triggering the facility's 15th emergency closure on record.
The closure order was issued on February 17, 2026. The restaurant was required to vacate by February 18 and ultimately reopened the same day at 11:04 a.m., according to state records.
What Inspectors Found
Sacred Spice Tampa Bay: Emergency Closure History
The February 17 inspection that triggered the closure produced nine high-severity violations and four intermediate violations. The follow-up inspection the next morning, February 18, found one remaining high-severity violation before the restaurant was cleared to reopen.
That remaining high-severity violation involved inadequate handwashing facilities. Without functioning handwashing infrastructure in place, state records indicate proper hand hygiene was impossible for employees working the line.
The sewage backup itself was the trigger for the emergency order. Raw sewage in a food-service environment contaminates surfaces, equipment, and the air, creating direct pathways for pathogens to reach food being prepared and served to customers.
What This Means
A sewage backup is not a maintenance nuisance. It is an immediate public health threat. Sewage carries bacteria including E. coli and salmonella, as well as viruses and parasites. When it backs up into a kitchen or food-preparation area, every surface it contacts, and every surface workers touch afterward, becomes a potential transmission point.
The inadequate handwashing facilities violation compounded that risk. State inspectors documented that the restaurant lacked the infrastructure for employees to wash their hands properly at the time of the follow-up inspection, the morning after the sewage event. That means workers preparing and handling food had no reliable way to remove contamination from their hands before touching food, utensils, or surfaces.
Together, those two conditions, active sewage contamination and no functional handwashing infrastructure, represent a direct route from waste to food to customer.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 closure did not arrive without warning. State records show Sacred Spice Tampa Bay has accumulated 1,763 violations across 100 inspections on record, an average of more than 17 violations per inspection visit.
The facility has been emergency-closed 15 times in total. Five of those prior closures are detailed in state records. Inspectors shut the restaurant down for roach and fly activity in May 2024 and again in March 2024, just two months apart. Before that, a closure in August 2023 cited rodent, roach, and fly activity simultaneously. That August 2023 closure has no confirmed reopen date in state records.
The facility was also closed for a sewage backup in July 2022, making the February 2026 event the second time sewage forced a shutdown at this address. In October 2021, inspectors closed it for roach and rodent activity, a closure that lasted two days.
The inspection record between closures tells the same story. In September 2024, inspectors cited nine high-severity violations in a single visit, followed by a follow-up the next day with four more high-severity findings. In February 2025, inspectors documented eight high-severity violations on February 5, then returned on February 17 and found four more. A clean inspection in March 2025 was followed five months later by another visit in August 2025 that produced five high-severity and three intermediate violations.
The pattern is not one of isolated incidents. It is a facility that has cycled through emergency closures, follow-up inspections, brief periods of compliance, and then renewed violations, across multiple years and across multiple violation categories including pests, sewage, and hygiene infrastructure.
The Pattern
What makes the February 2026 closure notable is not that it happened. It is that it was the 15th time it happened.
The restaurant has been in operation long enough to accumulate 100 inspections on record. It has been emergency-closed, on average, once for roughly every seven inspections. The violations span nearly every major category of food safety failure: rodents, roaches, flies, sewage, and now handwashing infrastructure.
The August 2023 closure, in which inspectors documented rodent, roach, and fly activity at the same time, has no confirmed reopen date in state records. Whether the restaurant reopened from that closure and under what conditions remains unresolved in the public record.