NEW SMYRNA BEACH, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors walked into Sopotnicks Cabbage Patch at 549 Tomoka Farms Rd and found what the records describe simply as rodent activity, enough to shut the bar down on the spot.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ordered the facility vacated by March 26, 2026. Inspectors returned that same day and cleared it to reopen at 9:24 a.m., after finding only two remaining violations, one high-severity and one intermediate.
The closure was the second emergency shutdown in the facility's documented inspection history.
What Inspectors Found
Sopotnicks Cabbage Patch: Inspection History
The March 25 inspection produced five high-severity violations and five intermediate violations. The rodent activity was the triggering condition for the emergency order, but inspectors also cited the facility for having no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, a high-severity violation.
A second violation documented on the March 25 visit involved improper sewage or wastewater disposal, classified as intermediate severity.
The follow-up inspection the next morning found the rodent problem addressed sufficiently to allow reopening. The consumer advisory violation remained on the books as a high-severity citation, along with one intermediate violation.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity in a food service facility is one of the conditions Florida law treats as an immediate threat to public health, which is why it triggers an emergency closure rather than a standard warning. Rodents contaminate surfaces, equipment, and food with droppings, urine, and hair. They carry pathogens including salmonella and leptospira. A customer eating at a facility with active rodent presence has no way of knowing which surfaces or food items have been contaminated.
The consumer advisory violation cited on the same inspection is a separate concern. Without a posted advisory, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or very young have no warning that certain menu items, such as undercooked meat or eggs, carry elevated risk of foodborne illness. That information gap falls hardest on the people least able to recover from a serious infection.
The improper sewage or wastewater disposal violation carries its own acute risk. Sewage contains fecal bacteria, including E. coli and hepatitis A. When wastewater is not properly contained and routed, it can spread fecal contamination to food prep surfaces, equipment, and the hands of employees who then handle food.
All three violation categories documented on March 25 involve direct pathways from the facility's environment to a customer's plate.
The Longer Record
Eight inspections are on record for Sopotnicks Cabbage Patch, dating back to April 2022. Those eight visits produced 78 total violations. That averages nearly ten violations per inspection across the facility's documented history.
The March 2026 closure was not the first. Records show the facility was also emergency-closed following the January 19, 2023 inspection, which produced six high-severity and five intermediate violations. That earlier closure and the March 2026 shutdown make Sopotnicks Cabbage Patch a two-time emergency closure facility in fewer than four years of documented inspections.
The inspection on January 31, 2025 produced the single worst violation count in the facility's history: seven high-severity and four intermediate violations. That visit came roughly 14 months before the March 2026 closure, and the records do not show the high-severity count dropping below three in any inspection between 2023 and the closure date.
High-severity violations appeared in every single inspection on record. There was no inspection in the eight-visit history that came back clean on the most serious category of citations.
After the Closure
The facility reopened the morning of March 26, 2026, roughly hours after the vacate order was issued. The speed of that turnaround, less than 24 hours from closure to reopening, is consistent with a facility that addressed the immediate rodent finding quickly enough to satisfy inspectors on the follow-up visit.
What the follow-up inspection also showed, however, is that not every violation from the closure inspection was resolved. The consumer advisory for raw and undercooked foods, a high-severity citation, was still outstanding when the facility was cleared to reopen.
Whether that violation was corrected after the March 26 follow-up, and what the facility's current status looks like, is not reflected in the data on record.