FLORIDA. State inspectors found nine high-severity violations at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 2350 on S University Boulevard in Jacksonville during a single inspection this summer, citing failures that included food not cooked to required minimum temperature, no written employee health policy, no person in charge present or performing duties, and an employee not reporting symptoms of illness.
That location ranked worst among Florida Popeyes outlets reviewed between June 5 and September 2, 2026. It was not alone.
The Worst of the Worst
The S University Boulevard location drew eight distinct high-severity citations in total. Inspectors noted food in poor condition or adulterated, inadequate handwashing by food employees, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, and the absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Three intermediate violations accompanied the high-severity findings.
Jacksonville Runs Deep in the Data
Three of the ten worst-performing Popeyes locations in Florida during this period were in Jacksonville, and all three carried seven or more high-severity violations.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 2519 on Dunn Avenue in Jacksonville drew seven high-severity citations, including a person in charge not present or performing duties, an employee not reporting symptoms of illness, food not cooked to required minimum temperature, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, improperly stored or labeled toxic chemicals, and improperly identified or stored toxic substances. Inspectors also cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal, an intermediate violation.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 13133 on Duval Station Road in Jacksonville matched the Dunn Avenue location with seven high-severity violations. Among them: food from an unapproved or unknown source, parasite destruction procedures not followed, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, toxic chemicals improperly stored, and an employee not reporting symptoms of illness. That location also drew four intermediate violations, including improper sewage disposal.
Food from an unapproved source at a chicken chain is a notable citation. It means inspectors could not verify that the product passed federal inspection checkpoints.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 140 on Soutel Drive in Jacksonville added three high-severity violations, including improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, improper use of time as a public health control, and improperly stored toxic chemicals, along with four intermediate violations covering improper sewage disposal, improper sanitizing procedures, single-use items improperly reused, and inadequate ventilation.
Beyond Jacksonville
The problems were not confined to one city.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen #123 on W Mitchell Hammock Road in Oviedo drew six high-severity violations, including improper hand and arm washing technique, inadequate shell stock identification or records, parasite destruction procedures not followed, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. Shell stock traceability and parasite destruction violations are unusual citations at a fast-food chicken chain and suggest inspectors found issues extending beyond the core fried-chicken menu.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 4901 on Park Boulevard North in Pinellas Park was cited for four high-severity violations: improper hand and arm washing technique, inadequate shell stock identification or records, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, and no allergen awareness demonstrated. Two intermediate violations included improper sewage disposal and multi-use utensils not properly cleaned.
The Popeyes operated by Tice on 34th Street North in St. Petersburg drew three 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 findings.
Popeyes operated by Tice on Commercial Way in Spring Hill was cited for food not cooked to required minimum temperature, no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic chemicals improperly stored, along with one intermediate violation for improper sewage or wastewater disposal.
Popeyes operated by Tice on Highway 44 in New Smyrna Beach drew three high-severity violations including an employee not reporting symptoms of illness, food in poor condition or adulterated, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods. Two intermediate violations covered improper sewage disposal and inadequate ventilation.
Popeyes on W Merritt Island Causeway in Merritt Island was cited for one high-severity violation, toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used, and one intermediate violation for single-use items improperly reused.
What These Violations Mean
The most dangerous single cluster in this review was at the S University Boulevard Jacksonville location: no employee health policy, no reporting of illness symptoms, and no manager present or performing duties. These three violations together describe a facility where a sick worker could handle food without anyone in authority to intervene. Norovirus, which causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads directly from infected food handlers to customers. A written health policy is the first line of defense. Its absence at the Jacksonville location means there was no documented protocol requiring sick employees to stay home or report symptoms.
Undercooking violations at the Spring Hill, Dunn Avenue Jacksonville, and S University Boulevard Jacksonville locations carry a specific risk for a chicken chain. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Popeyes built its brand on fried chicken. A failure to reach minimum cooking temperatures at three separate locations in the same 90-day window is not a paperwork problem.
Chemical storage violations appeared at six of the ten locations reviewed, including St. Petersburg, Spring Hill, Dunn Avenue Jacksonville, Duval Station Road Jacksonville, Soutel Drive Jacksonville, and Oviedo. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas create a direct contamination pathway. Mislabeled chemicals are acutely dangerous because employees cannot identify what they are handling or what the appropriate response to a spill would be.
The allergen awareness citation at the Pinellas Park location stands out. Thirty-two million Americans live with food allergies, and allergic reactions send roughly 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. A facility where staff cannot demonstrate allergen awareness is a facility where a customer asking about ingredients may get a wrong or incomplete answer.
The Longer Record
Across all 193 Florida Popeyes locations, state records show 4,525 inspections on file, an average of more than 23 inspections per location. The chain's statewide pass rate of 79.27 percent means roughly one in five inspections ends without the location meeting standards. The average of 4.36 violations per inspection is the baseline against which the ten worst locations this period should be measured: the S University Boulevard Jacksonville location, with nine high-severity violations alone, ran more than twice the chain's per-inspection average just in its most serious citation tier.
Three Florida Popeyes locations have been emergency-closed this year. Emergency closures require an inspector to determine that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health, a threshold above the standard violation process. The data does not identify which three locations were closed, but the closure number sits against a backdrop of a chain with a consistent pattern of high-severity violations across multiple cities and operators.
The Tice-operated group, which runs locations in St. Petersburg, Spring Hill, and New Smyrna Beach, produced violations at all three outlets during this review period. Chemical storage failures appeared at two of those three locations, and sewage disposal violations appeared at two as well. Whether those shared citations reflect shared operational practices across the Tice franchise group is a question the inspection record raises but does not answer.
The Duval Station Road Jacksonville location drew a citation for food from an unapproved or unknown source. That violation has no remediation equivalent to fixing a broken cooler or labeling a chemical bottle. If the sourcing question was not resolved at re-inspection, that location was still serving food that state inspectors could not trace.
