Pests, lack of water land 3 restaurants in trouble

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – If you ever wonder what goes on in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant, health inspectors are giving us a glimpse. Serious violations led to restaurants briefly shutting down.

While some of the violations may make you cringe, others may just make you shrug.

The Chunky Tomato food truck, based off Stonebridge Drive in Mandarin, temporarily shut down after a failed inspection last week, according to state regulators' records. An inspector said he found the food truck didn't have any water when he tried to wash his hands. That led to an immediate closure and the food truck didn't get the green to reopen until the next day.

Jax What's Cookin' on Lane Avenue shut down briefly for serious violations, which included more than a dozen rodent droppings, nearly two dozen roaches and flies, state records show. Inspectors said they were all found in the kitchen and the pests didn't stop crawling in until a  fifth inspection. The restaurant managed to reopen with a perfect score.

In St. Augustine, Amici Italian Restaurant on South A1A temporarily shut down last Thursday. Inspectors said they found four live roaches, one dead roach and food in the cooler held at the wrong temperature. The restaurant met inspection standards and reopened the following day.