Roaches force food court chain at Pembroke Lakes Mall to close, inspectors say
A popular Cajun restaurant chain located inside a Pembroke Pines mall was shut down after inspectors saw live roaches in its kitchen, according to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Kelly’s Cajun Grill, located at 11401 Pines Blvd., inside the Pembroke Lakes Mall food court, racked up five total violations, including two high-priority offenses that DBPR considers able to “contribute directly to a foodborne illness or injury,” during an April 15 inspection that required the eatery to temporarily close.
According to DBPR’s website, the division only doles out emergency closures when an establishment’s violations “pose an elevated risk to the health, safety or welfare of the public or the establishment’s employees.”
Inspectors visited the fast-casual spot — which has sister locations in Broward Mall, Sawgrass Mills, Dolphin Mall and Dadeland Mall — and spotted two roaches crawling on top of the restaurant’s “prep table in rear food preparation area,” the DBPR report says.
An employee killed both and sanitized the table following correction, the department added.
Inspectors also cited Kelly’s Cajun Grill for cross-contamination, including a worker who handled raw beef and failed to change their gloves or wash their hands before preparing cooked chicken.
Several basic violations — what DBPR considers “best practices to implement” — were also found during the department’s visit.
Those were an employee wrongly leaving their phone on a food preparation area, an uncovered container of beans inside a walk-in cooler and a wet wiping cloth that was not kept in a sanitizing solution between uses.
All three infractions were fixed after inspectors’ warnings, the report says.
DBPR found no violations at a follow-up inspection the next day, allowing the restaurant to reopen.
