Hamburger Mary's closed for night because of roaches

Restaurant Report for last week of April

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A restaurant in the St. Nicholas neighborhood was shut down for five hours after a state inspector came in for a surprise inspection shortly after it opened and found roaches.

The inspector found live roaches on the wall and a half-dozen on pipes. All the roaches were in the same area around the dishwasher. There were also 25 live flies in the kitchen, bar, dining room and server area.

Those were two of five high-priority violations. Management said the problem was in a rotten wall. They told News4Jax that they knocked it down and had a new wall up that afternoon, which resolved the roach problem.

"The front of the house is very good. There was a wall and it was in between the two surfaces. That was the problem. We got it taken care of," manager Tommy Staples said.

Hours later, the inspector came back and checked Hamburger Mary's, finding that the roaches were gone, but there were still flies. The restaurant was able to reopen with only one high-priority violation.

The state did a third inspection two days later, and this time, all the major violations were fixed. The restaurant met the standards and was ultimately cleared.


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Anchor on The Morning Show team and reporter specializing on health issues.