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Food · Today in Vegas · November 5, 2026

The Health District Closed 54 Las Vegas Restaurants This Year. One Sahara Avenue Kitchen Was Shut Twice, the Second Time at 58 Demerits.

By Hargreaves Ledger, Pace Vegas Desk · November 5, 2026

The short versionSouthern Nevada Health District records show K-Ssambap on West Sahara Avenue was closed on June 23 with 53 demerits and again on September 10 with 58, the worst closure score in the county this year, and it reopened with a clean A both times. The district closed 54 food permits through mid-September 2026, and this follow-up to our 2016 list uses nothing but its inspection records.
Neon-lit restaurant door with a health district closure placard

In May 2016 Pace Vegas ran a list of the five most disgusting restaurants in Las Vegas, and some of it leaned on Yelp reviews and on what other sites said. This year we did it the boring way. Every fact below comes from the Southern Nevada Health District's own inspection records, downloaded from the district's public dataset on November 4, 2026, and checked against its public restaurant inspection search.

One limit up front: the 54-closure count covers January 1 through September 13 only. The health district told Pace Vegas its website has stopped displaying closures for Clark County food establishments because of technical issues, and that it is working to fix them, so the full 2026 total is not yet public.

Reply received by email
From: Dave Sheehan, Public Information Officer, Southern Nevada Health District
To: Pace Vegas Desk
Date: Nov. 4, 2026, 1:03 p.m. Pacific
Subject: RE: Pace Vegas: two questions on 2026 restaurant closures

Hargreaves, following are our responses to your questions:

1. The public data shows no closures after September 13. Are later inspections still being posted, and is there a typical lag? Due to technical issues, the website is currently not displaying closures for Clark County food establishments. We are working to resolve the issue.

2. For the eight permits below, would the inspectors' narrative notes be available, and if so, through what process? To obtain information regarding specific inspection details, including inspectors' narrative notes, please submit a Public Records Request through our SNHD website: SNHD Public Records Request

Thank you,

Dave Sheehan Public Information Officer Southern Nevada Health District

The health district grades on demerits. Zero to 10 is an A. Eleven to 20, or an identical repeat of a priority violation, is a B. Twenty one to 40 is a C, with a reinspection within 15 business days. Forty one or more means closure, and a kitchen can also be shut with far fewer points if the inspector finds an imminent health hazard such as a pest infestation, no hot water, sewage problems or no working refrigeration. Priority items cost 5 demerits each and priority foundation items 3. The district's records list which items an inspector marked, in its standard wording; they do not include the inspector's narrative notes, so what follows paraphrases the items as the district records them.

The worst closure score of 2026 belongs to K-Ssambap, a Korean restaurant at 3909 W. Sahara Ave. On a routine inspection on September 10 the inspector recorded 58 demerits and closed it. The marked items included effective pest control, food held at proper temperatures, food properly cooled, food wholesome, food contact surfaces cleaned and sanitized, handwashing and bare hand contact with ready to eat food, handwashing sinks stocked and accessible, thermometers, chemical storage, backflow prevention and the person in charge. It was the second time this year. On June 23 a routine inspection had found 53 demerits and closed the place, with a nearly identical list plus lack of adequate refrigeration, which the district treats as an imminent hazard. Both times it passed a reinspection with zero demerits, on June 30 and September 25, and its current grade is an A.

Sharky's Woodfired Mexican Grill at 5070 Blue Diamond Road was closed on August 6 with 55 demerits, the highest single score of the year after K-Ssambap's second visit. The inspector marked pest control, food wholesome, food at proper temperatures, food properly cooled, thawing and cooling methods, handwashing, food contact surfaces, cross contamination, handwashing sinks, chemicals, food stored off the floor and operating within the terms of the health permit. Its previous routine inspection, in September 2025, was an A with 8. It reopened after a reinspection the next day, August 7, with an A and 6 demerits.

Jerk Dat at 4734 E. Flamingo Road was closed on July 23 with 50 demerits. The items included thermometers, food from an approved source and received at proper temperature, pest control, food temperatures and cooling, handwashing, food contact surfaces, single use items, required signs and certifications, and the catch all hazard item for any other condition that may endanger public health. It had been graded B in May 2025 and A twice since. It reopened July 29 with an A and 3 demerits.

Awesome Thai at 870 Sierra Vista Drive was closed on April 8 with 45 demerits. The marked items included lack of adequate refrigeration, pest control, food wholesome, food held at proper temperatures, handwashing and bare hand contact, handwashing sinks, food contact surfaces, cross contamination, thermometers and the person in charge. It reopened April 13 with an A and 3, dropped to a B with 20 on a routine inspection on July 13, and earned back an A with 8 on August 6.

Pho Thanh at 5150 Spring Mountain Road was closed on February 24 with 44 demerits. The inspector marked pest control, food wholesome, food from an approved source and received at proper temperature, food held at proper temperatures, thawing and cooling methods, handwashing, food contact surfaces, cross contamination, chemicals and the person in charge. It reopened February 27 with zero demerits and posted an A with 9 on August 27.

Chiang Mai at 953 E. Sahara Ave. was closed on June 29 with 41 demerits, and its list included gross unsanitary conditions including pest infestation, one of the hazard items that can close a kitchen by itself, along with pest control, food wholesome, food temperatures, handwashing, food contact surfaces, cross contamination and handwashing sinks. It reopened July 31 with zero demerits and was graded A with 8 on October 1.

Krazy Eat at 663 N. Stephanie St. in Henderson took the long way. It was graded B with 19 in January, got back to an A in February, fell to a C with 33 on July 27, and then, on the reinspection meant to clear the C, on August 25, the inspector recorded 42 demerits and closed it. That list included food temperatures, thawing and cooling, handwashing, food contact surfaces, backflow, the grade card and consumer advisory, the person in charge and other conditions that may endanger public health. It reopened September 15 with zero demerits.

Repeat offenders are where the records get interesting. Laos Thai Street Food at 860 E. Twain Ave. has been closed once a year for three years running: June 14, 2024 with 30 demerits, September 2, 2025 with 33, and May 22, 2026 with 11, the last one for items that included gross unsanitary conditions including pest infestation. Each time it reopened within a week, and its routine inspections in between were A grades. An iCandy shop at Harry Reid International Airport, still listed under the McCarran name in the records, was closed in March 2024, April 2025 and January 2026, each time with 13 or fewer demerits and, this year, sewage and cross connection items, and each time it reopened within a day. Antojitos Los Guayabitos 702 on North Las Vegas Boulevard was closed with 49 demerits in May 2025 and again with 5 in March 2026, the second time for sewage and cross connection items.

By the numbers, the dataset shows 54 closures of food permits in 2026 through mid-September, against 143 in all of 2025, 113 in 2024, 115 in 2023, 116 in 2022 and 145 in 2021. It also shows 184 C grades so far this year, against 223 last year. Those counts are inspections, not restaurants, and a hotel kitchen and its bar are separate permits. Two cautions: no closure dated after September 13 appears in the November 4 data, which the district attributes to a technical problem with its website, and the district separately warns that some records may not appear for up to 60 days because of a computer system upgrade, so the 2026 count will likely rise.

As for the 2016 list: the Trump International steakhouse that led it was closed by the district on November 2, 2012 with 51 demerits and passed a reinspection the same day; its restaurant permit was graded A with 5 on October 1, 2026. The 2016 piece's detail about months old duck is not in the district's records, and we do not repeat it. Firefly's original Paradise Road location was closed in July 2011 with 33 demerits and in April 2013 with 44; those permits are inactive, and Firefly's current locations on South Buffalo Drive and at Hughes Center are graded A. Dick's Last Resort at Excalibur is an A with 3, and its one C in the records, 32 demerits, came in March 2021. Carlos'n Charlie's permits at the Flamingo are marked inactive, with A grades at their last inspection in August 2025. The Heart Attack Grill on Fremont Street drew a C with 40 in May 2012 and is an A with 8 today. Three of our five were picked on service and taste, which inspectors do not grade.

One record we left out on purpose: a Filipino restaurant on West Flamingo Road shows 78 demerits on July 22 but a C grade, not a closure, and every violation code in that inspection appears twice. That looks like a duplicated entry, not a 78 point kitchen, so we did not count it. The district's records also show a few restaurants still carrying a closure as their current grade with no later inspection posted; we did not report on those either, because the record does not say whether they reopened. What the records do not include is the inspectors' own narrative notes; the district says those require a public records request. Chiang Mai and Krazy Eat were emailed on November 4 and asked for comment by 5 p.m. Pacific on November 5; neither had replied by then. The other six restaurants list no public email, and the story relies on their public inspection records.

Anyone can check a grade. The health district's restaurant inspection search, at southernnevadahealthdistrict.org under Permits and Regulations, Restaurant Inspections, lists every permitted food establishment in Clark County with its current grade, demerits and inspection history back to 2005, and the full dataset can be downloaded free from the same section's Developers page. Inspections post about five business days after the visit. Every restaurant named in this story was graded A at its most recent posted inspection. Complaints go to the district at environmentalhealth@snhd.org or 702 759 0588, and the district says an inspection is a snapshot of one day, not a verdict on a kitchen forever.

The desk's takeThe 2016 list needed Yelp because the worst thing a restaurant could do back then was be rude, and the health district does not grade attitude. The 2026 list needed only a spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet says the system works exactly as designed: close the kitchen, clean the kitchen, pass the reinspection, collect the A, repeat. A grade card on the door tells you how the last visit went, which in a town built on the last hand dealt feels about right.

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