NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FL. State inspectors ordered Sichuan Fish Restaurant Sichuan Cuisine at 1242 NE 163 St closed on June 2 after finding rodent activity inside the facility, the sixth time in less than eight years that the restaurant has been shut down on an emergency basis for pests.
The closure was the most recent chapter in a documented pattern that stretches back to 2018. Inspectors cited eight high-severity violations and six intermediate violations on the day of the shutdown, the heaviest single-inspection violation count the restaurant has accumulated in its most recent run of inspections.
What Inspectors Found
Sichuan Fish Restaurant: Emergency Closure History
The June 2 inspection also flagged food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, a high-severity violation. Two intermediate violations accompanied that finding: improper sewage or wastewater disposal, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
The follow-up inspection on June 3 showed three high-severity and three intermediate violations still present. By June 4, the day the facility was ordered vacated, inspectors recorded one high-severity and two intermediate violations remaining. The restaurant was cleared to reopen that morning at 9:51 a.m.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity inside a food service facility is among the most direct threats to customer safety that inspectors document. Rodents carry Salmonella, Hantavirus, and leptospirosis, and they contaminate surfaces, food, and equipment through droppings, urine, and direct contact. A single rodent moving through a kitchen overnight can compromise cutting boards, prep surfaces, and stored ingredients that will be used in meals served the next day.
The finding of improperly cleaned and sanitized food contact surfaces compounds that risk significantly. Cutting boards, prep tables, and utensils that are not properly sanitized are a primary vehicle for bacterial transfer between raw and cooked foods. When rodent activity and unsanitary contact surfaces exist in the same kitchen simultaneously, the contamination pathways multiply.
Improper sewage or wastewater disposal, cited as an intermediate violation on June 2, carries its own acute risk. Raw sewage inside a food preparation environment introduces fecal contamination that can spread to any surface it contacts. Combined with the other violations documented that day, the June 2 inspection described a facility operating under conditions that posed immediate risk to anyone eating there.
The Longer Record
The June closure was not an isolated event. State records show 41 total inspections on file for this location, with 503 total violations documented across that history. That is an average of more than 12 violations per inspection visit.
The six prior emergency closures tell a more concentrated story. Three of those closures occurred within a five-month span, from December 2023 through April 2024. Each was triggered by rodent activity. Each time, the restaurant was allowed to reopen within one to two days. Each time, the rodents returned.
The inspection record from the months between closures shows the problem never fully resolved. The July 2024 inspection, three months after the April closure, produced three high-severity violations. The January 2025 inspection produced eight high-severity violations, matching the count from the June 2 shutdown. A follow-up three days later, on January 24, still showed four high-severity violations.
April 2025 and July 2025 inspections each produced four high-severity violations. The restaurant has not had a clean high-severity record at any documented inspection in recent years.
The Pattern
What the records show, taken together, is a facility that has been cited for rodent activity in five of its six emergency closures, with the sixth combining roaches and rodents. The restaurant has been closed, cleaned, reopened, and re-closed for the same category of violation across an eight-year span.
The gap between the 2022 closure and the December 2023 closure was roughly 17 months. The gap between December 2023 and February 2024 was two months. The gap between February 2024 and April 2024 was two months. The gap between April 2024 and June 2026 was just over two years, the longest stretch between closures in recent history.
That two-year gap ended on June 2.
The restaurant was cleared to reopen on June 4 after inspectors reduced the outstanding violations to one high-severity and two intermediate findings. Whether the conditions that triggered the sixth closure have been addressed in any lasting way is a question the inspection record, so far, has answered the same way six times.