Roaches run wild (and lie still) in Broward, and 12 restaurants pay the price

The Roach Report knows roaches don’t stop at the county line. Heck, they don’t stop at the front door of the restaurants below.

Here’s this week’s Roach Report, Broward Edition. We use state restaurant inspection reports without passion or prejudice, but occasionally with humor.

We’ve got 12 Broward restaurants cited for roaches. Just as in Miami-Dade, we’ll start with those that were shut down for the day wholly or mostly for roaches. There’s only one this time.

▪ Gety Gardens Restaurant, 6370 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Lauderhill — On Oct. 12, Gety was light on the overall violations (nine), light on the High Priority violations (one), but heavy on the bugs: “Observed on live roach by the handwashing sink in the kitchen; 10 live roaches by the three-door stainless steel reach-in cooler; 20 live roaches by the Vulcan reach-in cooler in the kitchen area; 1 live roach by the blender on the prep table in the kitchen area; approximately 50 live roaches at dry storage area.” Apparently, there’s only one place the roaches couldn’t survive: “Observed 5 dead roaches at dining room. It took them two inspections on Oct. 13 to things right again. Some restaurants get “Administrative Complaint Recommended” which means you can stay open, but they’ll be back the next day to check on you.

▪ Anglin’s Beach Cafe, 2 Commercial Blvd., Lauderdale-by-the-Sea — “One live under the triple sink. One live in the kitchen by the chest freezer.” But the dead must speak also. “Approximately 30 dead in a trap under the soda machine. Approximately 15 dead under the kitchen equipment. One dead at the hostess stand. Three dead under the equipment in the service area. One dead under the dish machine.”There was a bird in the restaurant. Along with flies on a food container.

▪ Pizza on the Beach, 107 Commercial Blvd., Lauderdale-by-the-Sea — Perhaps the wild kingdom aspects of the places put the inspector in a play-by-play mood. “One live roach near the sink in the front line. The roach ran behind the wood counter before employee could kill it.” “Wild bird present inside the establishment” and “Two flies in the front line. Five flies in the dish wash area. Employee killed the flies and cleaned the areas.” And on the dead roach front, “one dead roach on the wall near the sink in the front line. Two dead under the pizza display.”

▪ Sunset Bakery, 6941 Sunset Strip, Sunrise — This place already made the most recent Rodent Report, but double-dipping isn’t unusual. While the inspector seeing “one live roach run behind the mirror in the women's bathroom,” counted as a High Priority violation, it wasn’t the reason Sunset got red-flagged on Oct. 9. The Rodent Report details all that. Some places are roach motels. Here are the roach morgues.

▪ Bagel Hut, 4877 Coconut Creek Pkway, Coconut Creek — Two dead roaches at front line service counter cupboard. Maybe they ate the cooked potatoes, on which there was a Stop Sale order for being kept at an improper temperature.

▪ Checkers, 3541 NW Eighth Ave., Pompano Beach — One dead roach by the manager’s desk. Perhaps not coincidentally, this Checkers got a Stop Sale order on burgers and hot dogs that had suffered “temperature abuse.”

▪ Conrad Pool Grill, 551 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach, Fort Lauderdale — One corpse by the triple-sink in the pool kitchen.

▪ La Quinta Inn, 5727 N. Federal Hwy., Fort Lauderdale — “Three dead in the cabinet under the juice machine. One dead on the floor under the toast machines.”

▪ Taquiera Lataina, Llc, 760 Sample Road, Pompano Beach — “Two dead roaches under cabinet at handwash sink in cookline.”

▪ Travelodge, 4011 N. Ocean Blvd, Fort Lauderdale —“One dead in the storage bin for napkins. Three dead on the floor under the food shelves. One dead under the triple sink.”

▪ Wanfu Chinese Restaurant, 2301 W. Sample Rd., Pompano Beach — Another double-dipper from the Rodent Report had a couple of dead roaches under the three-compartment sink.

This month, we saw a few inspection reports with “Roach excrement or droppings,” which seems strange because even in South Florida, roaches tend to come about the size of droppings. Seems more like rodent droppings, but we’ll quote it as written...

▪ Mama’s Taste of the World, 9837 W. Sample Rd., Coral Springs —“Observed over 30 roach droppings in cabinet under triple sink.”

This story was originally published October 19, 2017 at 9:17 AM with the headline "Roaches run wild (and lie still) in Broward, and 12 restaurants pay the price."