FLORIDA. State inspectors cited a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen at 4108 S University Blvd in Jacksonville with 9 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations in a single inspection during the period ending September 11, 2026, the worst performance of any Popeyes location reviewed across the state in the past 90 days.
The violations at that location touched nearly every layer of food safety. Inspectors found no written employee health policy, at least one employee not reporting illness symptoms, and inadequate handwashing by food employees. Food was found in poor condition. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Chicken was not cooked to the required minimum temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods.
That is nine separate high-severity citations in a single visit.
The Violations
The Jacksonville location on S University Blvd is not an outlier within the chain. Three of the ten worst-performing Popeyes locations in Florida during this 90-day window are in Jacksonville. The location at 1324 Dunn Ave drew 7 high-severity violations, including a person in charge not present or not performing duties, an employee not reporting illness symptoms, food not cooked to required temperature, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and no consumer advisory for undercooked foods.
The location at 45 Duval Station Rd matched that total with 7 high-severity violations and added 4 intermediate citations. Inspectors there found food sourced from an unapproved or unknown supplier, parasite destruction procedures not followed, an employee not reporting illness symptoms, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, improperly stored chemicals, and no consumer advisory. An intermediate violation for improper sewage or wastewater disposal was also documented.
Food from an unapproved source is a serious finding at any restaurant. At a fast-food chicken chain, it raises a specific question: where did that food come from, and what inspections did it pass before it reached the fryer.
Beyond Jacksonville
Outside of Jacksonville, the picture does not improve significantly. The Popeyes at 600 34 St N in St. Petersburg drew 3 high-severity violations, all chemical-related: food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used. No intermediate violations accompanied those citations, which means inspectors flagged nothing minor at all, only serious ones.
The Spring Hill location at 4493 Commercial Way was cited for food not cooked to required minimum temperature, improperly stored toxic chemicals, no consumer advisory for undercooked foods, and an intermediate violation for improper sewage or wastewater disposal. A Popeyes that sells fried chicken and cannot demonstrate it is cooking that chicken to 165 degrees is a straightforward problem.
The location at 5950 Park Boulevard North in Pinellas Park produced 4 high-severity violations, including inadequate shell stock identification and no allergen awareness demonstrated. Those two citations are notable at a chain that sells fried chicken, not shellfish. The presence of shellfish traceability violations at a location that does not prominently feature shellfish on its standard menu points to procedural failures that extend beyond the fryer.
The New Smyrna Beach location at 3191 Hwy 44 drew citations for an employee not reporting illness symptoms, food in poor condition or mislabeled, and no consumer advisory, along with intermediate violations for improper sewage disposal and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
The Soutel Drive location in Jacksonville added 3 high-severity violations, including improper use of time as a public health control, a practice that allows food to sit in the temperature danger zone between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit without adequate documentation of how long it has been there.
What These Violations Mean
The most frequently cited high-severity violation across these ten locations is improperly cleaned or sanitized food contact surfaces, appearing at six of the ten locations reviewed. At a fried chicken chain, food contact surfaces include the equipment used to bread, handle, and stage raw poultry before it reaches the fryer. Bacteria from raw chicken, including Salmonella, can survive on those surfaces and transfer to other food, to packaging, or to employees' hands.
The employee illness violations documented at the S University Blvd and Dunn Ave locations in Jacksonville, and at the New Smyrna Beach location, represent a direct transmission pathway for foodborne illness. When a food worker handles product while symptomatic with Norovirus or a similar illness, every item they touch becomes a potential vehicle. Norovirus causes an estimated 20 million illnesses annually in the United States, and food service workers are a primary transmission route.
The undercooking violations at the S University Blvd, Dunn Ave, and Spring Hill locations are acutely serious for a chain that serves poultry. Salmonella survives in chicken below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates Salmonella causes 1.35 million infections annually in this country. A restaurant that cannot consistently demonstrate it is reaching that temperature threshold is operating with a known and documented pathogen risk.
The chemical storage violations, appearing at five of the ten locations, carry a different but immediate risk: acute poisoning. Cleaning chemicals stored near or above food, or improperly labeled, can contaminate food directly. The symptoms of chemical contamination are rapid and can be severe.
The Longer Record
Statewide, Florida inspectors have conducted 4,538 inspections across 193 Popeyes locations. The chain's overall pass rate of 79.27 percent means roughly one in five inspections results in a failing outcome. The average of 4.36 violations per inspection is the baseline against which these locations should be measured. Every location reviewed in this report exceeded that average, and several exceeded it by a multiple.
Three Popeyes locations across Florida have been emergency-closed this year. The data does not specify which locations, but the chain's inspection history, 4,538 total inspections across 193 locations, averages to more than 23 inspections per location. That volume of documentation means the patterns at the worst performers are not artifacts of a single bad day.
The Tice-operated group of locations, which includes the St. Petersburg, Spring Hill, and New Smyrna Beach restaurants, produced high-severity chemical violations at two of its three locations reviewed here. That geographic spread across different markets, with the same category of violation appearing repeatedly, is a franchise-level pattern, not a single-location aberration.
The Daytona Beach location at 101 N Ridgewood Ave and the Merritt Island location at 116 W Merritt Island Cswy each drew fewer high-severity violations than the Jacksonville cluster, but both produced citations for improperly reused single-use items and, in Daytona Beach's case, equipment in poor repair. Equipment violations are often the visible sign of a maintenance culture that does not prioritize the condition of the tools used to prepare food.
The Jacksonville location on S University Blvd accumulated 9 high-severity violations in a single inspection, including a finding that chicken was not cooked to the required minimum temperature. That finding has not been publicly resolved in the data available.
