The 25 Worst Restaurants in Florida

Every restaurant in Florida gets inspected by the Division of Hotels and Restaurants under the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). Most pass without incident. Some don’t. And then there are these places — the absolute bottom of the barrel, where inspectors found live roaches nesting in printers, 150 rodent droppings by the dishwasher, and walk-in coolers holding raw meat at room temperature overnight.

We crunched the numbers on every licensed restaurant in Florida and ranked them using the InspectFL Health Score — our proprietary 0-to-100 metric that weights violation severity, repeat offenses, and inspection history. What follows are the 25 worst-scoring restaurants in the state, limited to one per county to show just how widespread the problem is.

Fair warning: you might want to put down your lunch before reading this.

By the Numbers

The Rankings

Miami’s Iron Sushi earned the single worst score in the entire state with a perfect zero — and it’s far from the only problem in Miami-Dade County. Inspectors returned seven times over ten days, finding dead and live roaches on every single visit — in the ice machine, the toaster, inside gaskets, on countertops, and literally falling out of a mop. With 181 total violations, this is Florida’s undisputed champion of filth.

This Orlando bakery managed to score a flat zero while also picking up a repeat violation — meaning they’d already been warned about the exact same cross-contamination issue and did nothing about it.

A live roach in the printer. Fourteen more stuck to glue traps in the food prep area. With 141 total violations across its inspection history, Cang Tong in Sebring proves that Highlands County’s worst is as bad as anything in Miami.

Daytona Beach’s Sakura Express racked up 72 violations and enough rodent droppings to warrant a detailed map. Inspectors counted them location by location — under shelves, below freezers, near fryers — painting a picture of a kitchen that rodents treat as their personal highway.

Delray Beach’s Blue Anchor couldn’t figure out that raw meat goes below cooked food — not above it. The initial inspection caught raw beef over fish; the follow-up found raw beef over cooked carrots. Same mistake, different day.

Over 100 rodent droppings counted in a single inspection — in the portion cups customers eat from, on top of seasoning containers, and approximately fifty at the bar where patrons sit. Hillsborough County’s worst earns its zero.

Fort Pierce’s Pickled racked up 46 violations on its way to a zero score. Serving undercooked animal products without so much as a warning to customers is the kind of thing that gets restaurants shut down — and scored accordingly.

What makes Origen’s case remarkable isn’t just the roaches — it’s the persistence. Inspectors came back ten times over eight days. Every. Single. Time. They found more live roaches. The operator dutifully killed them on-site during each visit, but they just kept coming back, like a horror movie that never ends.

With 82 violations in its history, this Pinellas Park café had flying insects landing directly on the prep table where food was being prepared — and on the front counter where it was being served. Inspectors noted insects at virtually every station in the restaurant.

One hundred and eighty rodent droppings. In two locations. That’s not evidence of a mouse passing through — that’s evidence of a colony that considers the dishwasher area home. Satellite Beach’s Bizzarro Pizza squeaked past zero with a 0.5 score, but barely.

Even paradise has its bottom feeders. Key West’s Tikka Bar stored raw chicken directly over raw lobster — a cross-contamination issue that 39 total violations suggest was just the tip of the iceberg.

Jacksonville Beach’s Casa Marina is a hotel restaurant — the kind of place tourists trust. Inspectors found dead roaches in the silverware storage area and came back seven more times, finding dead roaches on every visit. The roaches were in different spots each time, suggesting a building-wide infestation.

Gainesville’s La Pasadita didn’t just have a rodent problem — it had a recurring rodent problem. The follow-up inspection found droppings in the same air handler closet, plus new ones near the back door. A repeat violation flag tells you this wasn’t their first rodeo.

Another repeat violator — Lake County’s Momiji was caught storing raw eggs above cut vegetables that would be served directly to customers. The “repeat violation” tag means they were warned before and ignored it.

Marion County’s representative on this list managed an 18 out of 100 — a score so low it implies systemic failures across nearly every category inspectors evaluate.

When a customer or employee vomits on a food-contact surface, staff need to know exactly what to do. Nawabi Hyderabad House had no plan whatsoever — and that was just one of 55 violations that earned this Seminole County spot a place on the list.

Twenty-one dead roaches in one visit. Behind the cook line, behind the ice maker, and on the coffee maker tray — as in, the thing your morning espresso sits on. Osceola County’s Little Italy generated an admin complaint with its 50 total violations.

Vero Beach’s beachside bar and grill had 67 violations in its history, headlined by improper raw meat storage. When your walk-in cooler is a game of cross-contamination Tetris, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets sick.

Sixty rodent droppings between the prep area and the server station — the places where food is prepared and where it’s picked up to be delivered to your table. Putnam County’s Blue Water Bay is a rural spot where the wildlife apparently isn’t limited to the outdoors.

Zolfo Springs may be a small town, but the Pioneer Restaurant’s 39 violations and raw-eggs-over-tomatoes situation shows that food safety failures don’t care about zip codes.

Forty-seven live roaches in a single inspection — plus an egg casing, meaning they’re actively breeding in the kitchen. The wok station alone had 15 under the equipment, and 20 more were clinging to the steam table where the soups sit. Four follow-up visits found roaches every time.

A sushi restaurant with a 35 out of 100 should give anyone pause. Sushi requires impeccable cold-chain management and sanitation — making a failing grade at a raw-fish spot particularly alarming.

This one is genuinely dangerous. Fort Myers’ Token Ramen had an entire walk-in cooler full of meat, seafood, and cooked items sitting at temperatures between 57°F and 70°F overnight. That’s not a cooler — that’s an incubator. The inspector issued a Stop Sale and the operator discarded everything, but with 78 total violations, this was clearly not an isolated incident.

Raw sewage pooling on the ground outside the back door. The sewer pipe lid was off, toilet paper visible around the opening, and the whole mess was draining openly onto the ground. Pasco County’s El Paisa brings a uniquely stomach-turning entry to this list that doesn’t involve a single roach.

Rounding out the list, Fernandina Beach’s Cantina Louie represents Nassau County with a 43 — barely scraping into the low-40s and earning an F grade through consistent underperformance across multiple inspection categories.

What This Means

Every restaurant on this list received a grade of F based on our InspectFL Health Score calculation. These scores reflect real inspection data — the kind of findings that inspectors documented in black and white after walking through these kitchens.

If your favorite spot is on this list, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s currently in bad shape. Restaurants can and do improve after inspections. But these scores reflect a pattern of serious violations — often the same common critical violations repeated over and over — that earned them the lowest marks in their respective counties.

Want to check your local restaurant? Every establishment in our database has a full inspection history and health score. Search for any Florida restaurant →