ST. PETERSBURG, FL. State inspectors ordered Subway 4419 at 2004 66th Street North closed on September 28, 2026 after documenting rodent activity inside the restaurant, marking the second emergency closure in the location's recorded inspection history.
The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation issued a vacate order requiring the restaurant to shut down by September 29. The location reopened the same day at 10:38 a.m. after a follow-up inspection.
What Inspectors Found
Subway 4419 — Inspection Severity, 2022–2026
The closure-triggering inspection on September 28 produced eight violations in total, four of them classified as high severity. Alongside the rodent activity, inspectors cited improper handwashing by food employees, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used.
Four intermediate violations were also documented that day. The follow-up inspection on September 29 cleared the rodent finding but still left three high-severity violations and two intermediate violations on the books.
The Violations
The handwashing citation is among the most serious repeat concerns an inspector can document at a food service facility. Inspectors noted that food employees were not washing their hands adequately, a failure that creates a direct pathway for bacteria and viruses to move from workers to food to customers.
The toxic substances violation is a separate category of concern. Inspectors documented that chemical products inside the restaurant were improperly identified, stored, or used. In a food preparation environment, misplaced or unlabeled chemicals can contaminate surfaces, equipment, or food directly.
The consumer advisory violation was also flagged as high severity. Without a posted advisory, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or otherwise at elevated risk have no way of knowing that any menu item may involve raw or undercooked ingredients.
Two intermediate violations rounded out the follow-up inspection: single-use items being reused and inadequate ventilation and lighting. Neither carries the same immediate risk as the high-severity citations, but both indicate conditions that inspectors found unresolved even after the restaurant had been cleared to reopen.
What These Violations Mean
Rodent activity is one of a narrow set of conditions that Florida law treats as grounds for immediate emergency closure, and the reasoning is direct. Rodents move through walls, drains, and storage areas that food workers never access, and they contaminate surfaces and packaging as they travel. Unlike a temperature violation that can be corrected by adjusting equipment, rodent activity signals an infestation that does not disappear on its own.
The handwashing violation documented at this location on both the closure date and the follow-up inspection is not a paperwork issue. Inspectors specifically noted that food employees were not washing their hands properly, which is the most common documented pathway for spreading norovirus, Salmonella, and E. coli from food handlers to the people they serve.
The toxic substances citation adds a different dimension. An improperly stored or unlabeled cleaning chemical in a sandwich preparation environment is a contamination risk that a customer would have no way to detect. The violation does not require an incident to be dangerous; the risk is created by the condition itself.
Taken together, the three high-severity violations that remained on the books at the September 29 follow-up inspection suggest the restaurant was reopened with unresolved problems still documented by the same inspectors who cleared the rodent finding.
The Longer Record
The September 28 closure was not the first time this location has been emergency-closed. State records show one prior emergency closure in the facility's history, which spans 18 inspections and 61 total violations on record.
The recent inspection history shows a location that has not gone a full calendar year without at least one high-severity citation since 2022. The June 2026 inspection, just three months before the closure, produced four high-severity violations and one intermediate, the same high-severity count as the closure-triggering inspection itself. That June visit did not result in a closure order.
The two inspections in late 2025, in November and December, also produced high-severity violations. The December 2023 inspection produced four high-severity citations, the same count that appeared in June 2026 and again on September 28, 2026.
What the record shows is a facility that has accumulated citations across multiple years, in multiple categories, with two emergency closures now on file. The September 29 follow-up inspection cleared the location to reopen, but three high-severity violations remained documented on that same visit.
