FLORIDA. Inspectors visiting the Subway at 3424 SW Williston Road in Gainesville between April 30 and July 28, 2026 found six high-severity violations at a single location, including food in poor condition, food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, and toxic chemicals stored or labeled improperly. That location, along with nine others across the state, represents the worst-performing Subway restaurants in Florida during a 90-day stretch that raised questions about whether the chain's franchise oversight keeps pace with its footprint.
Subway operates 876 locations in Florida, more than almost any other fast-food brand in the state. Across 14,190 inspections on record, the chain averages 3.43 violations per inspection and holds a 93.15 percent pass rate. Two Florida Subway locations have been emergency-closed this year.
The Violations
The Gainesville location's violations extended beyond chemicals. Inspectors cited food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, a finding that means Salmonella in poultry and E. coli in ground beef can survive and reach a customer's tray. The same location was also cited for food in poor condition and for failing to post a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods.
Subway #47295 at 830 E Hathaway in Bronson matched the Gainesville location with six high-severity violations, but added two that inspectors flag as particularly acute: no person in charge present or performing duties, and employees not reporting symptoms of illness. Those two violations together describe a facility where management oversight was absent and the single most common cause of multi-victim foodborne outbreaks, a sick worker continuing to handle food, was not being controlled.
Subway #60865 at 1325 San Marco Blvd, Suite 104 in Jacksonville also logged six high-severity violations, including one that is unusual for a sandwich chain: inadequate shell stock identification and records. Subway does not typically serve oysters or clams, making that citation notable. The same location was also cited for improper handwashing technique, food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized, toxic substances improperly stored, and no allergen awareness demonstrated.
Subway #29413 at 7965 SR 50 in Groveland drew a violation for parasite destruction procedures not followed, another citation that stands out at a chain better known for deli meat than raw fish. Inspectors also cited employees not reporting illness symptoms, food in poor condition, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and food contact surfaces not properly sanitized.
Subway 21218 at 13769 SW 152 St in Miami accumulated the highest combined violation count of any location in this review, with five high-severity and five intermediate violations. Inspectors found no employee health policy, food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, no allergen awareness demonstrated, and, at the intermediate level, improper sewage or wastewater disposal. That last item, improper sewage handling, creates risk of fecal contamination spreading through a facility.
Two Hialeah locations also drew scrutiny. Subway at 1905 W 35 St in Hialeah was cited for five high-severity violations, including employees not reporting illness, inadequate handwashing facilities, food in poor condition, and time used improperly as a public health control. Subway #26296 at 4410 W 16 Ave in Hialeah drew the same inadequate handwashing facilities and employee illness reporting violations, plus inadequate shell stock identification records.
Subway 1973 at 917 Arthur Godfrey Rd in Miami Beach was cited for food from an unapproved or unknown source, one of the most serious violations in the food safety code. Food from unapproved sources bypasses federal inspection, which means there is no reliable chain of custody if a customer gets sick. The same location also had improperly stored toxic substances and food contact surfaces not properly sanitized.
What These Violations Mean
The most frequently cited high-severity violation across these ten locations was failure to post a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, appearing at eight of the ten. For a chain like Subway, which offers tuna, steak, and chicken that may be served at temperatures below the pathogen-killing threshold, the advisory is the last line of warning for pregnant women, elderly customers, and anyone with a compromised immune system. Without it, those customers have no way of knowing the risk.
The chemical violations at Gainesville, Bronson, Groveland, Miami Beach, and the SW 26 St Miami location are a different category of hazard. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can cause acute poisoning through direct contamination or through a worker mistaking a chemical container for a food ingredient. These are not housekeeping failures. They are conditions that can send a customer to an emergency room.
Employee illness violations at Bronson, Groveland, both Hialeah locations, and the W 35 St Hialeah location describe a structural breakdown, not an isolated incident. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million American illnesses per year, spreads most efficiently from a food worker's hands to a customer's food. A location without an enforceable employee health policy, like the SW 152 St Miami location, has no mechanism to remove a sick worker from service even if that worker wanted to comply.
The food from unapproved source violation at the Miami Beach Arthur Godfrey Road location is particularly difficult to remediate quickly. Unlike a temperature problem that can be fixed with a thermometer check, unapproved sourcing requires tracing the entire supply chain back to a licensed distributor and establishing documented records. Until that is done, there is no way to trace an illness back to its origin.
The Longer Record
The statewide inspection record for Subway in Florida spans 14,190 documented inspections across 876 locations, a volume that makes pattern analysis meaningful. The chain's 93.15 percent pass rate sounds reassuring until it is measured against the specific locations in this review, where six of ten logged six or more combined violations in a single inspection window.
The Gainesville, Bronson, and Jacksonville locations each reached the same high-severity violation threshold, six citations, through distinct failure modes. That spread, chemical storage in Gainesville, management absence in Bronson, shellfish traceability and allergen awareness in Jacksonville, suggests the problems are not being driven by a single systemic lapse but by independent breakdowns at the franchise level.
The Miami cluster is harder to explain as coincidence. Three Miami locations and two Hialeah locations appear in the bottom ten of this review. The SW 152 St Miami location, with five high-severity and five intermediate violations including improper sewage disposal, represents the most comprehensive inspection failure in the dataset. Inadequate ventilation, single-use item reuse, and no allergen awareness at the same location describe a facility where multiple independent safety systems had degraded at once.
The two emergency closures already recorded at Florida Subway locations this year add context to the pattern. Emergency closures require inspectors to find conditions so dangerous that continued operation poses an immediate public health threat. The violations documented at Bronson, where management was absent and employees were not required to report illness, and at the SW 152 St Miami location, where sewage was improperly handled, are the kinds of conditions that precede closures. Neither location appears to have been emergency-closed during this review period, but both accumulated the violation profiles that typically draw that outcome.
The Arthur Godfrey Road Miami Beach location remains the single most unresolved finding in this review. Food from an unapproved or unknown source was documented. No follow-up disposition is reflected in the data.
