FLORIDA. State inspectors documented nine high-severity violations at a single Jacksonville Popeyes during the summer inspection period, a tally that included food not cooked to required minimum temperature, employees failing to report illness symptoms, and no person in charge present or performing duties.
That location, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 2350 at 4108 S. University Blvd., also drew a citation for food in poor condition or adulterated and for food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized. Three intermediate violations accompanied the nine high-severity findings, making it the worst-performing Popeyes location in Florida during the June 1 through August 29 window.
It was not the only Jacksonville store with serious problems.
What Inspectors Found
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 13133 at 45 Duval Station Rd. in Jacksonville drew seven high-severity violations, including food from an unapproved or unknown source, parasite destruction procedures not followed, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. Inspectors also cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal at that location, one of four Popeyes stores in this review to receive that intermediate citation.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 2519 at 1324 Dunn Ave., also in Jacksonville, matched the Duval Station location with seven high-severity violations. That store's record included a person in charge not present or performing duties, employees not reporting illness symptoms, food not cooked to required minimum temperature, and improperly stored toxic chemicals.
Three Jacksonville locations in the top five worst performers. That concentration is the most visible pattern in the summer data.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 140 at 5581 Soutel Dr. in Jacksonville added three high-severity violations and four intermediate ones, including single-use items improperly reused, improper sanitizing solution or procedures, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
Outside Jacksonville, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen #123 at 230 W. Mitchell Hammock Rd. in Oviedo recorded six high-severity violations. Inspectors cited improper handwashing technique, inadequate shell stock identification records, parasite destruction procedures not followed, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned, and toxic chemicals improperly stored.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 4901 at 5950 Park Blvd. North in Pinellas Park drew four high-severity violations, including no allergen awareness demonstrated and inadequate shell stock identification records.
The two Tice-operated locations also drew scrutiny. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen operated by Tice at 600 34th St. N. in St. Petersburg received three high-severity violations, all chemical-related: toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. No intermediate violations accompanied the citation.
The Tice-operated location at 4493 Commercial Way in Spring Hill added three high-severity violations of its own, including food not cooked to required minimum temperature and toxic chemicals improperly stored, plus an intermediate citation for improper sewage or wastewater disposal.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen operated by Tice at 3191 Hwy. 44 in New Smyrna Beach recorded employees not reporting symptoms of illness, food in poor condition or adulterated, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, alongside intermediate citations for improper sewage disposal and inadequate ventilation.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen at 116 W. Merritt Island Cswy. in Merritt Island drew the fewest violations of the group, one high-severity citation for toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used, and one intermediate for single-use items improperly reused.
What These Violations Mean
The most alarming cluster in this inspection period involves sick workers and management absence. At the S. University Blvd. Jacksonville location, inspectors cited both the absence of a person in charge and employees failing to report illness symptoms. Those two violations together describe a specific breakdown: no manager present to enforce the rule that symptomatic workers stay off the line, and workers who either did not know or did not follow the requirement to report. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses annually in the United States, spreads directly through food handled by infected workers. The Dunn Ave. Jacksonville location carried the same combination.
Undercooking at a fried chicken chain carries a particular weight. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The S. University Blvd. and Dunn Ave. Jacksonville locations and the Spring Hill Tice-operated store all received citations for food not cooked to required minimum temperature. At a chain whose core product is chicken, that violation is not incidental.
The chemical storage violations were the most geographically widespread finding in this review, appearing at six of the ten locations. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas create a direct contamination pathway. The risk is not theoretical: mislabeled cleaning agents have been ingested by customers when they contaminated food or beverages. The Oviedo, St. Petersburg, Spring Hill, Duval Station, Dunn Ave., and Soutel Dr. locations all drew chemical-related high-severity citations.
The consumer advisory citations at five locations, including Jacksonville's S. University Blvd., Duval Station, Dunn Ave., Oviedo, and New Smyrna Beach stores, point to a different but serious gap. Without a posted advisory for raw or undercooked items, customers who are immunocompromised, elderly, pregnant, or managing chronic illness cannot make an informed choice about what they order. That obligation exists in Florida code and was unmet at five Popeyes locations simultaneously.
The Longer Record
Across all 193 Florida Popeyes locations, state records show 4,518 inspections on file. That volume reflects years of accumulated visits and means the chain's overall pattern is not difficult to read. The statewide pass rate of 79.27 percent means roughly one in five Popeyes inspections in Florida results in a failed outcome. The average of 4.36 violations per inspection, across that many visits, represents a baseline that the worst locations in this period exceeded by a wide margin.
The Jacksonville concentration is worth examining on its own. Four of the ten worst-performing locations in the June through August period were Jacksonville stores, three of them among the top five. The Duval Station location's citation for food from an unapproved or unknown source stands apart from the rest of the list. That violation means food entered the kitchen without passing through USDA or FDA inspection channels, which eliminates the traceability that allows health officials to trace an outbreak back to its source. If a customer became ill, investigators would have no supply chain record to follow.
The parasite destruction citation, which appeared at both the Duval Station Jacksonville location and the Oviedo store, requires specific context. Parasite destruction procedures exist because certain parasites, including Anisakis in fish and Trichinella in pork, survive cooking if the food was not properly frozen first. At a fried chicken chain, the appearance of this violation at two separate locations raises a question the inspection record alone cannot answer: what specific menu items triggered it.
The chain has recorded three emergency closures in Florida in 2026. The inspection data for this period does not indicate which locations those closures affected, but the pattern of violations at the Jacksonville and Oviedo stores, particularly the combination of management absence, sick workers, undercooked food, and unapproved food sourcing, describes conditions that have preceded emergency closures at other chains in prior inspection cycles.
The S. University Blvd. Jacksonville location logged more high-severity violations in a single inspection than any other Popeyes in Florida during this period. No consumer advisory was posted. Food was not cooked to required temperature. No person in charge was present. Those three facts existed at the same location, at the same time, on the same inspection report.
