FLORIDA. A Jacksonville Popeyes on South University Boulevard logged nine high-severity violations in a single inspection this summer, including food not cooked to required minimum temperature, employees not reporting symptoms of illness, and no person in charge present or performing duties, according to state records covering June 7 through September 4, 2026.
That location, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 2350 at 4108 S University Blvd, also had no written employee health policy and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, bringing its total to nine high-severity and three intermediate violations, the worst single-inspection tally among the chain's Florida locations during the 90-day window.
Statewide, Popeyes operates 193 Florida locations. Inspectors have logged 4,525 inspections on record across those sites. The chain's pass rate sits at 79.27 percent, and the average inspection turns up 4.36 violations. Three locations have been emergency-closed this year.
The Violations
Jacksonville accounts for four of the ten worst-performing locations in this period. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 2519 at 1324 Dunn Ave in Jacksonville recorded seven high-severity violations, including food not cooked to required minimum temperature, employees not reporting illness symptoms, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled. Inspectors also cited improper sewage or wastewater disposal there.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 13133 at 45 Duval Station Rd in Jacksonville matched that count with seven high-severity violations and added four intermediate ones. That location's record included food from an unapproved or unknown source and a citation for parasite destruction procedures not followed, two violations that stand apart from the chemical and handwashing failures seen elsewhere in the chain.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 140 at 5581 Soutel Dr, also in Jacksonville, drew three high-severity and four intermediate violations. Among the high-severity findings: time as a public health control not properly used and food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized.
Outside Jacksonville, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen #123 at 230 W Mitchell Hammock Rd in Oviedo logged six high-severity violations. Inspectors cited improper handwashing technique, inadequate shellfish identification records, parasite destruction procedures not followed, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen 4901 at 5950 Park Boulevard North in Pinellas Park drew four high-severity violations, including no allergen awareness demonstrated and inadequate shellfish identification records, alongside improper handwashing technique and food contact surfaces not properly cleaned.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Operated by Tice at 600 34th St N in St. Petersburg recorded three high-severity violations, all chemical-related: toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled, toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used, and food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Operated by Tice at 4493 Commercial Way in Spring Hill had three high-severity violations 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 was cited for an employee not reporting symptoms of illness, food in poor condition or adulterated, and no consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen at 116 W Merritt Island Cswy in Merritt Island had the lightest tally of the ten, with one high-severity violation for toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used.
What These Violations Mean
The single most dangerous cluster in this data involves the management and employee health failures documented at the South University Boulevard and Dunn Avenue Jacksonville locations. When no person in charge is present or performing duties, inspectors are documenting the absence of the one person responsible for catching every other problem on this list before it reaches a customer. CDC data cited in the violation records shows establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of managed ones.
The employee illness violations at four locations, South University Boulevard, Dunn Avenue, Duval Station Road, and New Smyrna Beach, are the category most directly connected to outbreak events. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses annually in the United States, spreads most efficiently through food workers who handle product while symptomatic. The absence of a written health policy at the South University Boulevard location means there is no documented procedure requiring workers to report symptoms at all.
The undercooking violations at South University Boulevard, Dunn Avenue, and Spring Hill carry particular weight for a chain built around fried chicken. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. An inspection that finds food not reaching required minimum temperatures at a chicken-focused quick-service restaurant is documenting a direct, plausible route from kitchen to patient.
The chemical storage violations appear at six of the ten locations: St. Petersburg, Spring Hill, Dunn Avenue, Duval Station Road, Soutel Drive, and Oviedo. Improper storage of toxic chemicals near food creates a contamination risk that has nothing to do with bacterial growth or cooking temperature. It is acute, not cumulative. The Duval Station Road and Oviedo locations were each cited for both improper chemical storage and toxic substances improperly identified, stored, or used, two overlapping citations that suggest inspectors found chemicals present without adequate controls of any kind.
The Longer Record
The statewide inspection total of 4,525 across 193 locations averages to roughly 23 inspections per location over the chain's history in Florida's records. That baseline matters when reading this summer's findings in context.
The four Jacksonville locations appearing in the worst-ten list represent a geographic concentration that goes beyond coincidence. Three of them, South University Boulevard, Dunn Avenue, and Duval Station Road, each recorded seven or more high-severity violations in a single inspection window. Whether those locations share an operator, a management structure, or simply a pattern of inspections revealing similar underlying conditions is not specified in state records, but the clustering is documented.
The "Operated by Tice" franchise group accounts for three of the ten locations in this report: St. Petersburg, Spring Hill, and New Smyrna Beach. All three recorded high-severity violations. The Spring Hill location drew a sewage disposal citation alongside the cooking temperature and chemical storage failures. The New Smyrna Beach location was cited for a sick employee not reporting symptoms and food in poor condition.
Three Florida Popeyes locations have been emergency-closed this year. The inspection data does not specify which locations triggered those closures, but the chain's 79.27 percent pass rate means roughly one in five inspections this year ended without a passing grade. Across 193 locations and 4,525 inspections on record, that is not a figure concentrated in a handful of outliers. It is a chain-level pattern.
The Duval Station Road location in Jacksonville was cited for food from an unapproved or unknown source. That violation means inspectors documented product that could not be traced back through a USDA or FDA-inspected supply chain. At a national chain with centralized distribution, an unapproved source citation raises a question the inspection record does not answer: where did the food come from.
