A Fort Myers Beach restaurant was shut down overnight after the health department found live roaches among other violations during a routine inspection.
Parrot Key Caribbean Grill and Bar has since received a clean bill from the health department and reopened.
Parrot Key has offered dockside dining right along Fort Myers Beach for almost 20 years.
"We've been voted best waterfront dining since 2005," their Marketing Director David Kastan said.
During that time, he said they've had numerous health inspections and always passed every one, until April 26th during a routine health inspection.
"They found some basic violations and then two serious violations," Kastan said.
The health department inspection report said they found live roaches -- two in front of a reach-in cooler at a wait station and two on a cutting board at the cook line. They also said they found a dead roach in the drain of a salad prep station.
"Roaches disgust me. Dead or alive," Carol Dalton, who was visiting Fort Myers Beach, said.
The report also said the microwave at the restaurant was soiled with encrusted food -- a repeat violation.
A high priority violation listed in the report was that the sanitizer in their dishwasher wasn't at the required minimum strength. That problem wasn't able to be fixed when the health department came back the next day.
"We had made a call to get a service tech out here, and they hadn't come out here yet, so the health inspector gave us more time to get the service tech to come," Kastan said. "On the follow up inspection later that afternoon, right before we opened, there were no violations at all."
Kastan said they run a tight ship, and the inspection report was upsetting and taken seriously.
"A fluke occurrence, but we treated it extremely seriously and we'll do our best to make sure it doesn't happen again," Kastan said.
"You don't get it out of your head. The thought is still there," Carol Dalton said.
"If you can get it fixed and control it, then I'd give them a shot," her husband Charlie Dalton said.
Kastan said they have a regular extermination service come every week.
