FORT MYERS, FL. State inspectors ordered Three Girls on Tamiami Trail shut down on June 9, 2026, after finding the restaurant operating without any potable water, a violation that triggers an immediate emergency closure under Florida food safety law.
The facility at 14655 Tamiami Trl was given until June 10 to vacate. Records show it reopened at 9:01 a.m., though the circumstances that led to the water loss and what was done to restore service are not detailed in the available inspection record.
What Inspectors Found
Inspectors found Three Girls operating with no potable water available at all, the single condition that triggered an immediate emergency closure order on June 9, 2026.
The closure trigger here was not a temperature reading or a pest count. It was the complete absence of potable water, the one utility a food service operation cannot function without for even a single shift.
Without potable water, employees cannot wash their hands between tasks. Surfaces cannot be sanitized. Dishes cannot be cleaned. Raw food contact with equipment that cannot be properly washed creates a direct contamination pathway to every plate that leaves the kitchen.
Florida regulators treat the absence of potable water as an emergency condition precisely because it disables every other food safety control simultaneously. A restaurant can correct a single temperature violation or address one pest sighting while keeping other safeguards in place. When there is no water, none of those safeguards function.
What This Means
Potable water is not one item on a checklist. It is the infrastructure that makes every other health code requirement possible to meet.
Hand washing is the most basic defense against direct contamination of food by employees. Florida health code requires accessible hand-washing stations with running water at all times during operation. When that water is gone, the entire hand-washing requirement becomes unenforceable for the duration of the shift.
The same applies to equipment sanitation. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, utensils, and cooking equipment that contact raw proteins require wash, rinse, and sanitize cycles. Without water, that cycle stops. Any bacteria present on equipment from prior use, whether salmonella from raw poultry or listeria from deli items, has no mechanism for removal before the next use.
For customers who ate at Three Girls during any period when water was unavailable, the risk was not theoretical. It was the direct result of a kitchen operating without its most fundamental sanitation tool.
The Closure and Reopening
The emergency closure was ordered June 9. The vacate deadline was set for June 10. The record shows the facility reopened at 9:01 a.m., suggesting the water issue was resolved within roughly 24 hours of the closure order, though the inspection record does not specify what remediation was performed or whether a follow-up inspection was conducted before reopening was authorized.
Florida's emergency closure process requires a facility to demonstrate it has corrected the condition that triggered the shutdown before it can resume service. In cases involving loss of potable water, that typically means confirming water service has been restored and that the facility has been cleaned and sanitized using that restored water supply.
The speed of the reopening, less than a day after the closure order, is notable. It suggests the water loss may have been an infrastructure issue, a municipal supply interruption or a broken line, rather than a longer-term operational failure. The available record does not confirm which.
The Longer Record
Three Girls has no prior inspections on record with the state. No prior violations. No prior emergency closures.
That absence of history cuts two ways. It means there is no documented pattern of neglect, no string of temperature violations or pest citations building toward this closure. The June 9 shutdown cannot be characterized as the culmination of a long record of warnings.
It also means there is no baseline against which to measure the facility's normal operating condition. A restaurant with 40 prior inspections and a clean record tells a clear story when something goes wrong. A facility with zero prior inspections offers no such context.
What the record does show is that the first time state inspectors documented conditions at Three Girls, those conditions were serious enough to require an emergency closure. That is the only data point available.
Whether the water loss was a one-time event outside the restaurant's control or a symptom of deeper operational issues is a question the existing record cannot answer. The next inspection will be the first real test of the facility's baseline compliance.
Three Girls reopened at 9:01 a.m. the morning after the closure order. Whether a follow-up inspection confirmed full compliance before that reopening, and what inspectors found when they returned, is not reflected in the current record.