NAPLES, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into Stix Sushi And Seafood on Tamiami Trail East and found enough roach activity to order the restaurant shut down the same day.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation issued the emergency closure order on February 9, 2026, giving the restaurant until February 10 to vacate. Inspectors documented four high-severity violations and two intermediate violations during that visit. The restaurant was cleared to reopen later that afternoon on February 10, after a follow-up inspection found zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations.
What Inspectors Found
Stix Sushi And Seafood: Recent Inspection Pattern
The roach activity finding was the trigger for the February closure order. State closure authority under Florida food safety law is reserved for conditions that pose an immediate threat to public health, and active pest infestation is among the most direct grounds for that designation.
The February 9 inspection also produced an intermediate violation for improper sewage or wastewater disposal, a citation that would reappear in the April 16, 2026 follow-up inspection months later.
What These Violations Mean
Roach activity in a food service environment is not a housekeeping citation. Cockroaches carry pathogens including salmonella, E. coli, and staphylococcus on their bodies and in their droppings, and they move freely between drains, food prep surfaces, and stored ingredients. A customer eating at Stix on February 9 before the closure order was issued had no way of knowing insects had been documented in the facility.
The improper sewage or wastewater disposal violation documented during the same inspection carries a separate and serious risk. Improper sewage handling creates the potential for fecal contamination to spread across a facility, reaching prep surfaces, equipment, and food. That violation appeared again in the April 16, 2026 inspection, suggesting it was not fully resolved in the weeks following the February closure.
Emergency closures in Florida are not issued for paperwork failures or minor temperature deviations. They require an inspector to determine, on the spot, that continued operation poses an immediate danger. The February 9 finding met that threshold.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 closure was not the first time the state ordered Stix Sushi And Seafood shut down. State records show the restaurant has one prior emergency closure on record before the February incident, making this its second documented emergency shutdown.
Across 24 total inspections on record, the facility has accumulated 145 violations. That works out to an average of just over six violations per inspection visit, a figure that reflects persistent, recurring compliance problems rather than isolated incidents.
The inspection record from the past two years shows a consistent pattern of high-severity findings. The April 2025 inspection produced six high-severity violations in a single visit, the highest count in the recent record. The September 2025 inspection cycle found four high-severity violations, and a follow-up two days later still showed two high-severity citations remaining. The February 2026 closure came roughly five months after that September cycle.
None of the follow-up inspections in this period produced a clean record on the first return visit. The September 8, 2025 inspection required a follow-up on September 10 that still carried two high-severity violations. The February 9 closure required a return on February 10 before the restaurant was cleared. The April 16, 2026 inspection, the most recent high-severity visit on record, required a further follow-up on April 20 before violations dropped to a single intermediate citation.
Where Things Stood After the Closure
The restaurant did reopen following the February closure, cleared by inspectors at 3:45 p.m. on February 10. But the inspection record in the weeks and months that followed showed the facility was not finished accumulating citations.
The April 16, 2026 inspection, conducted roughly two months after the emergency closure, found two new high-severity violations and three intermediate violations, including the return of the improper sewage or wastewater disposal citation that had appeared during the closure-triggering inspection in February.
The most recent inspection on record, April 20, 2026, showed one intermediate violation remaining.
Stix Sushi And Seafood has been licensed as a permanent food service establishment throughout this period. The facility's record now spans two emergency closures, 145 total violations, and a pattern of high-severity findings that predates the February shutdown by at least two years.
