MIAMI, FL. Back in April 2026, state inspectors ordered Sushi Café at 7917 NW 2nd Street shut down after finding roach and rodent activity inside the restaurant, the third emergency closure the Miami-Dade location has faced in nine years.

The closure was ordered April 15. Inspectors gave the restaurant until April 16 to vacate. It ultimately reopened the same day the order took effect, at 12:51 p.m., after a follow-up inspection cleared it to resume service.

What Inspectors Found

Sushi Café: Recent Inspection Severity, 2024–2026

April 15, 2026 — Emergency Closure7 high-severity violations, 5 intermediate violations. Roach and rodent activity triggered emergency shutdown.
April 16, 2026 — Callback Inspection6 high-severity violations, 2 intermediate violations remained after overnight remediation. Restaurant cleared to reopen at 12:51 p.m.
October 7, 2025 — Routine Inspection6 high-severity violations, 2 intermediate violations documented.
February 14, 2026 — Routine Inspection10 high-severity violations, 4 intermediate violations, the worst single-visit tally in the recent record.
November 12–13, 2024 — Two-Day Inspection Pair8 high-severity on day one, 6 high-severity on day two. Combined 13 intermediate violations across both visits.
April 17, 2024 — Routine Inspection10 high-severity violations, 5 intermediate violations.

The April 15 inspection produced seven high-severity violations and five intermediate ones. The pest activity, roaches and rodents documented inside the facility, was the finding that triggered the emergency order.

The follow-up inspection on April 16 found the pest problem resolved well enough to allow reopening. But six high-severity violations and two intermediate violations remained on record even after the restaurant passed its callback.

Among the high-severity violations cited during the most recent inspection: no employee health policy, improper handwashing technique, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and no allergen awareness demonstrated. The intermediate violations included single-use items being improperly reused and inadequate ventilation and lighting.

The consumer advisory violation is notable for a sushi restaurant specifically. Sushi service routinely involves raw fish, and state rules require a posted or menu-level notice informing customers that consuming raw or undercooked seafood carries health risks.

What These Violations Mean

The roach and rodent finding alone is enough under Florida law to warrant an immediate shutdown. Cockroaches and rodents carry Salmonella, E. coli, and other pathogens on their bodies and in their waste. In a sushi kitchen, where raw fish is handled and plated without a final cooking step to kill bacteria, pest contamination poses a direct route to illness for every customer served before the closure.

The absence of a consumer advisory for raw and undercooked foods is a separate but compounding problem. Customers who are elderly, pregnant, immunocompromised, or managing certain health conditions face elevated risk from raw fish, and the advisory is the mechanism that lets them make an informed choice. Without it, they have no way of knowing the risk applies to what they are ordering.

Improperly stored toxic chemicals near food surfaces can cause acute poisoning through cross-contamination. The allergen awareness violation is equally direct: food allergies send roughly 30,000 Americans to emergency rooms each year, and staff who cannot identify allergens in dishes cannot warn customers who need that information to stay safe.

The food contact surface violation ties directly to the raw-fish context. In a sushi preparation environment, cutting boards, knives, and prep surfaces that are not properly cleaned and sanitized between uses become a primary transfer point for bacterial contamination from one item to the next.

The Longer Record

This closure did not arrive without warning. Sushi Café has 30 inspections on record at the NW 2nd Street location, with 431 total violations documented across that history.

The restaurant was emergency-closed for roach activity once before, in April 2017. Inspectors ordered that shutdown on April 6, 2017, and the facility reopened the following day. The April 2026 closure is the same category of violation, nine years later.

The inspection record in the two years leading up to the closure shows a pattern of sustained high-severity findings. The February 14, 2025 inspection produced 10 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate ones. The April 17, 2024 inspection also recorded 10 high-severity violations, with 5 intermediate. There was no inspection in that stretch that showed fewer than 6 high-severity violations.

The November 2024 pair of inspections, conducted on consecutive days, produced 8 high-severity violations on day one and 6 on day two, with a combined 13 intermediate violations across both visits. A facility inspected twice in two days with those numbers in November 2024 was still producing 7 high-severity violations and a pest-triggered emergency closure by April 2026.

Even after clearing the April 16 callback inspection and reopening, six high-severity violations remained on the books. That number, on a day the restaurant was deemed fit to serve customers again, is the same violation count inspectors recorded during a routine visit in October 2025.