The handwritten closure order taped to the counter gives two reasons for shutting the stall down: pest infestation and poor sanitation.
The stall is Chopstick Express, the rice bowl and noodle counter in the Yaohan Centre food court, and Vancouver Coastal Health ordered it closed on June 30.
The stall has not opened July 6.
That day’s routine inspection flagged five critical violations at once.
Food that needed to stay cold was not being kept at 4°C or below, and food that needed to stay hot was not being held at 60°C or above.
The premises was not in a sanitary condition, and there was no sanitizing solution on hand at a usable strength.
The inspector also recorded signs of both rodent and insect activity, the official version of the mouse droppings and cockroaches named on the order.
What the notice on the counter does not show is that this had been building for the better part of a year.
Chopstick Express turns up in inspection after inspection through the back half of 2025.
A routine visit on August 20 2025, found four critical violations, including rodent activity and an unsanitary premises.
Follow-ups one week and two weeks later kept finding problems, and by early September the health authority had issued a formal warning letter.
The stall cleared a follow-up on September 11 with zero critical violations.
Nine months later, the June 30 visit became the worst inspection of the run.
The file reads like an escalation ladder.
The early visits ended with the operator directed to comply, September brought the warning letter, and June brought the padlock.
One problem runs through almost all of it: hot food held below a safe temperature, flagged on four separate inspections. Blocked or unstocked handwashing stations came up again and again too.
Fixing this is not a quick reopen.
Before the gate goes back up, the order requires the operator to clear out all mouse droppings and cockroaches, deep clean the space, throw out any food the pests reached, and bring in a pest control service to treat and pest-proof the stall.
The operator may also have to attend a compliance meeting and present a corrective action plan first, and there is no reopening date on the notice.
For anyone who eats in that food court, the useful part is that none of this was hidden.
Every one of these inspections sits on Vancouver Coastal Health’s public reporting site.
Although it may be better for you to NOT go cruising around the reports and maybe ruin your favourite spots.
Whether Chopstick Express comes back clean or stays dark comes down to what the next inspection finds.
The closure adds to a rough stretch for Richmond, joining recent shutterings of Broli Kitchen, Aberdeen Centre’s Hazukido Cafe Plus, and Bruno at Versante Hotel.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: Chopstick Express, Yaohan Centre food court, 1095-3700 No. 3 Road, Richmond, V6X 2C1