This Davie pizzeria was the only South Florida restaurant ordered shut last week – Sun Sentinel
Flies landing near a pizza-dough mixer and dead roaches under a table with a meat slicer made state inspectors shut down a Davie pizzeria twice last week. It was the only restaurant temporarily closed in all of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel typically highlights restaurant inspections conducted by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation in Broward and Palm Beach counties. We cull through inspections that happen weekly and spotlight places ordered shut for “high-priority violations,” such as improper food temperatures or dead cockroaches.
[ FULL DATABASE: See Florida restaurant inspection reports from the last 30 days ]
Sun Sentinel readers may browse full Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade county reports through our state inspection map, updated weekly (usually Mondays) with fresh data pulled from the Florida DBPR website.
Any restaurant that fails a state inspection must stay closed until it passes a follow-up. If you spotted a possible violation and wish to file a complaint, contact Florida DBPR here. (But please don’t contact us: The Sun Sentinel doesn’t inspect restaurants.)
2221 S. University Drive
Ordered shut: Jan. 25 and Jan. 26; reopened Jan. 26
Why: Six violations (three high-priority), led by about 24 live flies seen in the kitchen: “on paper towel dispenser,” and landing “on walls and rack holding clean dishes” as well as “on pot on top of pizza dough mixer.”
Also in the kitchen, the state found approximately 24 cockroaches “crawling behind reach-in cooler next to triple sink,” “on wall near pizza dough mixer,” “on floor underneath flip-top cooler” and near the handwashing sink. One was discovered crawling in from a gap in the kitchen’s back door. (The restaurant’s operator sprayed bug repellent and managed to kill some during the inspection.)
The inspection also cited four dead roaches in the kitchen, including one “underneath table holding meat slicer.” Finally, the restaurant was ordered to remove its “plastic shopping bags of ice placed on top of lettuce,” so food wouldn’t be in contact with “nonfood-grade bags.” The operator “removed and replaced with a food-grade bag,” according to the report.
More cockroach and fly woes continued to plague the pizzeria during a follow-up inspection on Jan. 26, and the state ordered Esposito’s shut again. During a third visit later that day, inspectors found zero issues and cleared the restaurant to reopen.
