8 Shut Down: Restaurant Inspections

This is the worst set of restaurant inspections we’ve seen since we started. In just over a week’s time eight restaurants had to be temporarily closed as a result of roaches, rodents and other problems.

Update: The rest of our restaurant inspection story is at July Restaurant Inspections.

Six of these closures happened on July 24th in Festival Flea Market in Pompano Beach. It draws shoppers from a broad area including West Boca. It’s right off the Turnpike at Sample Road. The six restaurants were S & M Bagel Exchange, Far East Wok, All Star Pizza, Subway, Pita Nosh, and Munch & Chat. The bagel place had a total of 26 violations, the most of any we looked at in July. We’d add a 27th for using the term “S & M” in their name.
In addition, the McDonald’s at Clint Moore and Jog was closed on the 16th after inspection revealed roach activity:

Roach activity present as evidenced by live roaches found. Approx. 5 live roaches behind small cooler on the front cook line and front counter area , approx. 10 live roaches behind the English muffin speed rack on the front cook line and front counter area , appox. 5 live behind the bread speed rack in the front cook-line and front counter area, 1 live roach under the beverage cooler next to the flat surface grill, approx 10 live behind reach in cooler on cook line.

And in Royal Palm Place (East Boca south of Mizner Park), The Funky Biscuit was also temporarily closed on the 16th for rodent activity:

Rodent activity present as evidenced by rodent droppings found, 1 under oven, semi moist, 5 under hand washing sink,semi moist, approx. 10 by hot water heater, dry.

All but one restaurant was able to reopen the next day. The exception was Pita Nosh in the flea market, which still had rodent issues the next day:

Rodent activity present as evidenced by rodent droppings found. … Over 100 fresh and dry droppings along walls and under equipment

They were able to reopen the day after that, though they still had four “intermediate” violations including:

Intermediate – Certified Food Manager or person in charge lacks knowledge of employee health policy and health requirements.
Intermediate – Certified Food Manager or person in charge lacks knowledge of foodborne illnesses and symptoms of illness that would prevent an employee from working with food, clean equipment and utensils, and single-service items.

Oddly both Subway and the bagel place were allowed to reopen on the 25th even though the inspector still found roach activity. The roaches were fully cleared out on the next day’s inspection. Down Home Deli in the flea market was not shut down but did have 15 minor violations and a warning.

Also see the rest of our inspection report.

Channel 10 has more details on the Festival Flea Market shutdowns.

Author: Warren Redlich

Warren Redlich is a real estate agent and an attorney. He focuses on selling homes in West Boca Raton. Call or text Warren at 561-536-3645. Warren is also a tech YouTuber covering Tesla, SpaceX and more. His YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/c/WarrenRedlich/ and he sells Elon Musk related t-shirts and other merchadise at https://ElonBits.com. Warren also publishes videos about politics at https://warrenredlich.locals.com/