Monthly Statewide Industry Brief

What Changed This Month

553 new-facility approvals in September 2026, down 2.3% from 566 in the prior month. Named approvals include VENUE HASTINGS LLC in Hastings, and MORIZAWA SUSHI & CATERING in Tampa.

476 DBPR delinquent/inactive (status 45/46) license records in September 2026, down 8.6% from 521 in the prior month. A delinquent license is a public-record regulatory state, not confirmed proof the business has closed. Named records include LA PERLA DEL SUR INC in Miami, and MONCHEESE PIZZA in Surfside.

522 ownership-change approvals in September 2026, up 6.5% from 490 in the prior month. Named filings include CHINA MAMA in Longwood, and PELICAN WINGS & THINGS in Fort Lauderdale.

Duval County added 13 closure-status records versus 10 in the prior month, a move of +3.

Italian & Pizza led named cuisine closure-status counts with 26 records; examples include TAKE OUT JUVENTUD in Miami, and ANACAPRI ITALIAN REST in Miami.

Source dataset: DBPR license, application, inspection, and ownership-change files.

Five monthly shifts

Source dataset: the published RiskyEats data snapshot, the published RiskyEats data snapshot, the published RiskyEats data snapshot.

Per-Metro Mini-Tables

Miami: 6,799 active licenses, 85 new approvals, 402 closure-status records, and 77 ownership-change filings in September 2026. The monthly closure-status rate is 5.9% of the active base.

Fort Lauderdale: 5,671 active licenses, 39 new approvals, 2 closure-status records, and 59 ownership-change filings in September 2026. The monthly closure-status rate is 0.0% of the active base.

West Palm Beach: 4,281 active licenses, 36 new approvals, 1 closure-status records, and 30 ownership-change filings in September 2026. The monthly closure-status rate is 0.0% of the active base.

Port St. Lucie: 1,941 active licenses, 19 new approvals, 2 closure-status records, and 6 ownership-change filings in September 2026. The monthly closure-status rate is 0.1% of the active base.

Key West: 613 active licenses, 3 new approvals, 32 closure-status records, and 2 ownership-change filings in September 2026. The monthly closure-status rate is 5.2% of the active base.

Tampa: 10,167 active licenses, 81 new approvals, 3 closure-status records, and 86 ownership-change filings in September 2026. The monthly closure-status rate is 0.0% of the active base.

Source dataset: the published RiskyEats data snapshot joined to metro county definitions.

Per-metro FRII metrics

Raw counts mislead -- Putnam County losing 4 places is different from Miami losing 4. Use the rate or per-capita column for defensible comparisons. Methodology details linked above.

Source dataset: the published RiskyEats data snapshot joined to metro county definitions.

The Industry-Wide Number

The industry-wide read is 8.0%: 5,226 current closure-status licenses against 64,994 active licenses. That number is not a monthly failure rate; it is the standing inactive-license load the active market is carrying in the current file.

The useful monthly proxy is the flow difference. In September 2026, DBPR new-facility approvals outnumbered closure-status records by 77. That is expansion on paper, but it is expansion with churn underneath it: 522 ownership-change filings mean many restaurants changed hands without changing the sign on the building.

Source dataset: the published RiskyEats data snapshot and the published RiskyEats data snapshot.

How To Read The Month

The clean headline is that new approvals exceeded closure-status records by 77 in September 2026. The more useful read is that the month had three different speeds at once: new approvals were only down 2.3%, closure-status records fell much faster at down 8.6%, and ownership changes barely loosened at up 6.5%. A market can look healthier in the opening column while still feeling unstable to operators because ownership churn keeps moving underneath the visible consumer-facing brand.

Metro geography explains why a statewide number can feel wrong at street level. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Tampa Bay, and Jacksonville all sit inside the same Florida ledger, but each carries a different mix of active-license density, tourist traffic, landlord exposure, and chain concentration. That is why the metro table is not decoration: it keeps 64,994 active statewide licenses from flattening local reads that should stay local.

The named rows are the check against abstraction. TOOTSIE'S ORCHID LOUNGE in Panama City and EL SABOR VENEZOLANO in Kissimmee anchor the opening side; TIJUANA FLATS BURRITO CO in Jacksonville and EL PATIO DEL CHEF in Hollywood anchor the closure-status side; TIJUANA FLATS in Coral Springs and COUNTRY INN in Lake Worth anchor the ownership-change side. FRII is strongest when those names and the statewide arithmetic are read together.

The final caution is timing. This brief uses September 2026 because it is the last complete month available at render time, while the page itself was generated on 2026-10-15. That prevents five early-May days from being compared against full March and April months. The result is less dramatic, but more useful: one complete monthly ledger, one prior-month comparison, and one year-over-year inspection-volume anchor.

Source dataset: the published RiskyEats data snapshot, the published RiskyEats data snapshot, the published RiskyEats data snapshot.

Methodology

Methodology: FRII uses current DBPR license records for the active base and closure-status inventory, DBPR new-facility approvals for openings, DBPR change-of-owner approvals for ownership churn, and DBPR inspections for year-over-year inspection-volume context. Monthly rows use the last complete calendar month available at render time.

Forward context: the Phase 2 ORSM baseline currently scores 5,276 licenses in the elevated or high risk bands. The semiannual Outlook Brief (<a href="/fri/briefs/orsm-semiannual.html">/fri/briefs/orsm-semiannual.html</a>) provides the full per-license risk analysis and six-month scenario rollup.