Rodents Close Roanoke Food Court

The food court in the Roanoke City Market Building is closed because of rodents.

The city-owned food court's failure to open Saturday was something of a daylong mystery and the latest twist in recent discussions of the future of the 86-year-old building and its food court. The talk has taken on fresh urgency as the brand-new, nationally touted Taubman Museum of Art, just across Salem Avenue, prepares to open in November.

Would-be customers peered into windows. City officials offered general statements about "fall cleaning" and "possible violations." Workers carried 2-by-4s and other construction materials into the market building and said they'd been told not to talk about what was going on. Vendors said they didn't want to talk because it might jeopardize their businesses.

But on Saturday evening, Virginia health department spokesman Robert Parker confirmed that licenses for all 10 food court vendors were pulled after an inspection Friday found "a rodent control problem."

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