52 Emergency Closure Orders in 3½ Months: What State Inspections Found in Jacksonville Restaurants

State inspectors recommended 52 emergency closure orders for Jacksonville and Duval County food businesses between July 1 and Oct. 17, 2026, according to inspection records from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

That's 52 out of 2,678 inspections in that period, or about 1 in every 50 visits. About half of those businesses passed their first follow-up inspection, usually the next day. The rest needed more time or more visits.

Jax Times analyzed every food service inspection the state posted for Duval County this fiscal year. Here's what the numbers show, and how to look up any restaurant yourself.

How Florida inspects restaurants

Florida doesn't give restaurants a letter grade or a 0-100 score. Inspectors from DBPR's Division of Hotels and Restaurants visit licensed restaurants, food trucks and caterers and record each violation as one of three types:

• High-priority: problems that could directly contribute to foodborne illness or injury, such as food held at the wrong temperature
• Intermediate
• Basic

Each inspection then ends with an official result. The most common is "Inspection Completed - No Further Action." Others include a warning with a call-back visit, an administrative complaint, which can lead to fines, and an emergency order, which closes the business until it passes a call-back inspection.

School cafeterias are inspected separately by the health department and aren't included here.

The numbers, July 1 to Oct. 17

Most inspections, 2,178 of them, were routine visits. Another 331 were prompted by complaints from the public, and 169 were licensing inspections for new businesses.

What an emergency closure order means

An emergency order is the strongest step an inspector can take on the spot. The business has to stop serving the public until it fixes the problems and passes a call-back inspection.

Here's what happened at the first follow-up visit after each of the 52 emergency orders since July 1:

Most follow-up visits came the next day. A "not complied" result means the business stayed closed until it passed a later inspection.

Closure orders in the past two weeks

These are the emergency orders recommended from Oct. 5 to Oct. 17, with what happened at the next inspection:

A "not complied" result means the business hadn't fixed the problems at that call-back visit. It doesn't tell you whether it reopened later. The state's next posted inspection will show that, and our restaurant pages update every morning.

Businesses with more than one closure order

Two businesses were ordered closed more than once since July 1, according to the state records:

• Kazu Sushi Burrito, 117 W. Adams St., downtown: emergency orders on Aug. 11, Aug. 31 and Oct. 13. It complied at the call-back after the Aug. 31 and Oct. 13 orders.
• Flavorikan, 1803 E. Duval St.: emergency orders on Sept. 2 and Sept. 13.

Hooters2, 8938 San Jose Blvd., also had two emergency orders, on July 28 and Sept. 29.

Where the most serious problems were found

The emergency orders with the most high-priority violations since July 1 were:

• Al Asalah Shawrma8, 2011 Emerson St.: 22 violations, 9 high-priority (Aug. 12). It complied at the next day's call-back.
• Fuji 3, 11362 San Jose Blvd.: 20 violations, 8 high-priority (Oct. 13). Complied Oct. 14.
• Ya Habibi Slice & Spice0, 6271 St. Augustine Road: 19 violations, 8 high-priority (Oct. 1). Complied Oct. 2.
• El Primo Restaurant and Grocery0, 6715 Powers Ave.: 18 violations, 8 high-priority (Sept. 28). Not complied at the Sept. 30 call-back.
• Beirut Restaurant & Spirit1, 3928 Baymeadows Road: 17 violations, 8 high-priority (July 27). Complied July 28.
• Nudo Vietnamese Cuisine1, 10111 San Jose Blvd.: 20 violations, 8 high-priority (July 15). The state gave it a time extension at the July 16 call-back.

Complaints lead to more closures

When a member of the public complains about a restaurant, the state sends an inspector. Those visits were about twice as likely to end in an emergency order.

If you have a complaint about a restaurant, you can file it with DBPR online or by phone. That's how many of these inspections start.

Where the closures were

Emergency orders were spread across the county, but a few ZIP codes stood out. These ZIP codes had at least three emergency orders since July 1:

Downtown's total includes three emergency orders for the same business, Kazu Sushi Burrito, and two for Flavorikan. Several of the 32257 orders were along the same stretch of San Jose Boulevard, including two at the Hooters there.

Busy restaurant corridors also had plenty of inspections with few problems. ZIP codes 32216, 32246, 32256 and 32225, which cover much of the Southside, Beach Boulevard and Regency areas, each had more than 185 inspections and two emergency orders apiece, a rate near 1%.

Food trucks did better than restaurants

Food trucks, which DBPR licenses as "mobile food dispensing vehicles," had fewer problems on average than sit-down restaurants:

"Zero violations" in this table counts every inspection with none, including follow-up visits.

Month by month

Chains weren't immune

Closure orders weren't limited to small independent restaurants. National chain locations with emergency orders since July 1 included:

• Church's Chicken on Edgewood Avenue West
• Moe's Southwest Grill on Applecross Road
• Mod Pizza3 on Bartram Park Boulevard
• Captain D's on North Main Street
• KFC on Regency Square Boulevard North
• Jason's Deli1 on Southside Boulevard
• Twin Peaks on Atlantic Boulevard

Also on the list: a Panera Bread on Roosevelt Boulevard, which complied at its call-back the next day, and the Ramada by Wyndham hotel on Hartley Road.

Keep it in perspective

An inspection is a snapshot of one visit. Many violations are corrected while the inspector is still there, and about half of the businesses ordered closed passed inspection again the next day or soon after.

Clean inspections, on the other hand, were rare. Of the 1,595 Duval food businesses that got a full routine inspection, only 38 had zero violations on their latest one. Most zero-violation results in the state data, 264 of them, came on follow-up visits after problems were fixed.

How to check any Jacksonville restaurant

Jax Times now has a free lookup with the latest state inspection for every licensed restaurant and food truck in Duval County, updated every morning at jaxtimes.com/restaurants. Search by name, street or ZIP code to see:

• the number of violations
• how many were high-priority
• each inspection's official result
• the full inspection history since July 1

You can also follow a restaurant, and we'll email you when the state posts its next inspection.

For official inspection reports, search the business on DBPR's license and inspection lookup at myfloridalicense.com.