Hudson, Florida- Inside the Fairway Oaks Shopping Center, Marzella's Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria was long known for serving up old world Italian.
"It was real good, we had pizza," recalled previous customer Daniel Bowles.
But with new owners came a new name, the restaurant now officially called Martello's, and apparently a slew of new problems.
A bright orange sign posted on the front door indicated the restaurant was closed as an emergency closure May 9th. A state inspector documented 17 violations, five considered high priority.
Among the issues, temperature violations on garlic butter mix found at 72 degrees, improper side-by-side separation with raw chicken right next to the eggplant, a hand-washing sink not accessible for employee use, and roach activity with 23 live roaches; seven under the reach-in cooler and another 16 under the grill. The state says the restaurant was also operating without a license.
Martello's was eventually allowed to reopen. So last week we showed up to see if all the issues were really corrected.
"The owner is actually not here, said the on-duty manager. "You'd have to get his phone number or something."
Management told us everything was fixed but had no interest in showing us inside.
We shared the restaurant's inspection report with customers who were less than impressed.
"It's pretty nasty," said Kayla Stewart. I would never eat there, especially having kids."
"It's disgusting, it really is disgusting," said Bowles. "I've seen bad kitchens but not where there's live roaches crawling around everywhere," he continued before asking, "If you wouldn't eat it, why would you serve it to someone else?"
Follow 10 News Reporter Beau Zimmer on twitter @Zimm10
