ST. PETERSBURG, FL. Inspectors visiting DZO Pho Sushi Hibachi at 4500 66th Street North on April 28 found the restaurant serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means if a customer gets sick, investigators may have no way to trace where the food came from.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented in a single visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
Inspectors also cited the restaurant for food not cooked to the required minimum temperature. DZO serves sushi, pho, and hibachi, a menu that includes raw fish, poultry, and dishes cooked to order at tableside, all of which carry specific temperature requirements that were not being met.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Multi-use utensils were not properly cleaned, and the sanitizing solution in use was either too weak or improperly applied. When both the cleaning and sanitizing steps fail together, bacteria on surfaces survive every step of the process and transfer directly to food.
Employees were also observed using improper handwashing technique. Going through the motions of washing hands without the correct method leaves pathogens on the skin. The inspector also found that single-use items were being reused.
The restaurant does not post a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, as state code requires for any establishment serving sushi or other raw items.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. Suppliers approved by USDA and FDA are inspected and required to maintain traceability records. When a restaurant buys from an unapproved or unknown source, those records do not exist. If a customer gets sick, health investigators cannot trace the food back to its origin, which means an outbreak can spread further before anyone identifies the source.
The cooking temperature violation compounds that risk directly. Salmonella in poultry survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause severe illness. At a restaurant where food origin is already unknown and temperatures are not being verified, the two violations work together.
The missing consumer advisory matters in particular at a sushi restaurant. Pregnant women, elderly customers, and people with compromised immune systems face serious risk from raw fish, including exposure to Listeria and parasites. The advisory is not a formality. It is the mechanism by which customers who are most vulnerable can make an informed choice before ordering.
Improperly cleaned utensils and failed sanitizer concentration are not separate problems from the handwashing violation. When every layer of contamination control fails at the same time, the kitchen has no working barrier between what is on surfaces and what ends up on a plate.
The Longer Record
The April 28 inspection was the 44th on record for this location. Across those inspections, state records show 552 total violations documented at DZO Pho Sushi Hibachi.
Eight of those inspections resulted in emergency closures. The most recent was January 29, 2025, when the restaurant was shut down for rodent, roach, and fly activity. It reopened two days later, on January 31, and that same reopening inspection still found two high-severity and two intermediate violations. A week after the January 29 closure, a follow-up visit on January 31 was itself followed by another inspection on April 7, 2025, which turned up five high-severity violations and one intermediate.
The facility was also emergency-closed in January 2023 and October 2022, both times for the same combination of rodent, roach, and fly activity. The October 2022 closure lasted one day.
The pattern across the eight most recent inspections in the record is consistent. Only one visit, in October 2023, resulted in zero high-severity or intermediate violations. Every other inspection in that span found at least two high-severity violations, and four of those visits found five or more.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented nine violations on April 28, six of them high-severity, at a restaurant with 8 prior emergency closures and 552 violations across its inspection history.
The restaurant was not closed.