MIAMI, FL. The sushi on the plates at Sushi Bar on SW 72nd Street may have come from a source that no state or federal inspector ever examined, according to records from a July 29, 2026 inspection that also found employees not reporting illness symptoms, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and no advisory warning customers that raw fish carries health risks.
The state cited the restaurant for seven high-severity violations and three intermediate violations. It did not close.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the one that cuts deepest at a sushi restaurant. Fish and shellfish served raw must pass through an FDA-approved supply chain that verifies species identification, parasite destruction, and cold-chain handling. When a restaurant sources from an unknown or unapproved supplier, that documentation does not exist.
Inspectors also found employees were not reporting illness symptoms, that handwashing facilities were inadequate, and that the technique used when handwashing attempts were made was improper. Those three violations compounded each other.
Toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled somewhere in the facility. At a restaurant where raw fish is prepared on open surfaces, a mislabeled chemical container is not a paperwork problem.
The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw and undercooked foods. That notice, typically printed on a menu, is the only warning a pregnant customer or an immunocompromised diner receives before ordering a tuna roll.
What These Violations Mean
Food from an unapproved source is the violation that most directly removes the safety net from a raw-fish menu. USDA and FDA inspections exist to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and parasites before fish reaches a prep counter. Without that chain of custody, there is no way to trace an illness back to its source if a customer gets sick.
The illness-reporting failure compounds that risk immediately. Norovirus is the leading cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks in the United States, and food workers who do not report symptoms are its most reliable delivery mechanism. At Sushi Bar on SW 72nd Street, inspectors found not one but three handwashing failures: inadequate facilities, improper technique, and presumably a culture in which neither was corrected. A worker who handles raw fish, touches a contaminated surface, and then skips or botches a handwashing step transfers pathogens directly to food.
The improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and multi-use utensils extend that contamination window. Bacterial biofilms form on utensil surfaces within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning and resist standard sanitizers. At a sushi bar, those surfaces include the cutting boards and knives used on every piece of fish served that day.
The chemical storage violation sits in a different category but carries acute risk. A mislabeled or improperly stored cleaning compound near a raw food prep area can contaminate food directly, with no cooking step to neutralize it.
The Longer Record
Sushi Bar on SW 72nd Street: Inspection History
The July 2026 inspection was not an aberration. State records show 24 inspections on file for this location, with 221 total violations accumulated across that history.
The August 2025 inspection produced an identical tally: 7 high-severity violations, 3 intermediate. The December 2025 inspection produced 6 high-severity violations. The restaurant has not been emergency-closed once across all 24 inspections on record.
The single inspection where the facility produced zero high-severity violations was May 2023. Every inspection before and after that date carried high-severity citations. The pattern is not a restaurant that had a bad month. It is a restaurant that has been inspected at least eight times in roughly three years and has improved to zero high-severity violations exactly once.
The 221 cumulative violations across 24 inspections average out to more than nine violations per visit. The July 2026 inspection, with ten total, was not an outlier.
The restaurant was open for business on July 29, 2026, with seven high-severity violations on the books, including one that raised questions about where its raw fish came from.
