ORLANDO, FL. Inspectors visiting A Aki Sushi and Steakhouse at 1400 W Sand Lake Road on May 11 found the restaurant serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means there is no chain of custody, no safety inspection record, and no way to trace an outbreak if someone gets sick.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited employees for not reporting symptoms of illness. Food workers who continue working while sick are the primary driver of multi-victim norovirus outbreaks, which spread rapidly through a kitchen and reach customers through direct food handling.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. That violation, combined with the unapproved food sourcing and the illness-reporting failure, creates compounding risk: contaminated ingredients, handled by a possibly sick employee, on surfaces that were not adequately cleaned between uses.
Toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled somewhere in the facility. The inspector also cited the restaurant for failing to use time as a public health control correctly, a system that sushi restaurants rely on for raw fish held outside refrigeration. And the menu carried no consumer advisory warning customers that raw or undercooked items carry elevated risk.
No person in charge was present or performing supervisory duties when inspectors arrived.
Five intermediate violations accompanied the eight high-severity findings: improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, inadequate ventilation and lighting, improper waste disposal, and inadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilities.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation is the one with the longest tail. When a restaurant buys from unapproved or unknown suppliers, the food bypasses USDA and FDA inspection checkpoints entirely. If a customer becomes ill after eating there, investigators have no supply chain to trace. For a sushi and steakhouse serving raw fish, that gap matters considerably.
The consumer advisory violation compounds that risk specifically for vulnerable diners. Elderly customers, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems face elevated danger from raw or undercooked seafood and meat. Without a posted advisory, they have no notice that what they are ordering carries that risk.
The illness-reporting failure is a direct transmission route. A food handler who does not disclose symptoms, and whose manager is not present to enforce the policy, can spread norovirus or other pathogens to dozens of customers in a single shift. The absence of a person in charge at the time of inspection is not a technicality; it is the condition that allows the other failures to persist undetected.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, combined with improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, mean that bacterial contamination from one food item can transfer to the next. At a sushi restaurant, where raw proteins and ready-to-eat items share prep space, that pathway is particularly direct.
The Longer Record
The May 11 inspection was not an aberration. State records show A Aki Sushi and Steakhouse has been inspected 45 times and has accumulated 956 total violations across its history.
The five most recent inspections before May 11 tell the same story in sequence. On May 6, just five days earlier, inspectors documented the identical count: 8 high-severity violations and 5 intermediate violations. On December 11, 2025, there were 6 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. On April 21, 2025, the tally was 6 high-severity and 4 intermediate. On September 3, 2024, it was 7 high-severity and 6 intermediate.
The restaurant was emergency-closed once before, in June 2019, after inspectors found roach activity. It reopened two days later. In the years since, the violation counts have not trended downward.
The May 6 inspection, five days before the one that produced this article, matched the May 11 findings exactly in severity and count. Whatever corrections were made in the interval, they did not prevent the same profile of violations from reappearing.
Open for Business
After documenting eight high-severity violations, including food from unapproved sources, employees not reporting illness symptoms, improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, and toxic chemicals stored or labeled incorrectly, the inspector did not order an emergency closure.
A Aki Sushi and Steakhouse on Sand Lake Road remained open.