DELAND, FL. A state inspector walked into Fuji Express Hibachi and Sushi at 101 E. Plymouth Ave. on August 11 and documented food not cooked to the required minimum temperature, one of eight high-severity violations recorded that day. The restaurant was not closed.
State records show the inspection turned up violations across nearly every critical layer of food safety: employee illness reporting, handwashing technique, food contamination, surface sanitation, cooking temperatures, chemical storage, and consumer disclosure. Eight of the nine violations cited were classified high-severity. One was intermediate.
What Inspectors Found
The cooking temperature violation is the one that puts food on a plate in a condition that can make someone acutely ill. At a hibachi and sushi restaurant, raw proteins move through the kitchen constantly. Poultry not reaching 165 degrees Fahrenheit is a documented pathway for Salmonella to reach a customer's table alive.
Toxic chemicals were cited as improperly stored or labeled. That violation sits alongside a separate citation for food contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazards, two citations that together describe a kitchen where the line between cleaning supplies and food was not reliably maintained.
The inspector also cited employees for failing to report illness symptoms and the restaurant for having no written employee health policy. Both violations showed up on the same day, in the same building.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and no illness reporting is not a paperwork problem. Food workers who do not report symptoms are the leading documented cause of multi-victim Norovirus outbreaks. Without a written policy, there is no mechanism to keep a sick employee out of the kitchen, and no record to consult if customers later get ill.
Improper handwashing technique compounds that risk directly. A worker who goes through the motion of washing hands but uses incorrect technique, insufficient time, or skips a step leaves pathogens on their hands. At a sushi counter where hands contact raw fish and finished plates in the same shift, that is not a theoretical concern.
The consumer advisory violation is specific to raw and undercooked items, which at a sushi restaurant covers a substantial portion of the menu. Without that advisory posted or printed on the menu, customers who are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, or very young have no way to know they are taking on additional risk. The advisory exists precisely because those groups face outcomes more severe than an upset stomach.
Improperly stored chemicals near food create a contamination pathway that does not require a spill. Mislabeling or proximity to food prep surfaces is enough to introduce a cleaning agent into a dish without anyone noticing until a customer is already sick.
The Longer Record
August 11 was not an outlier. State records show Fuji Express has been inspected 23 times and has accumulated 215 total violations across that history. The pattern in recent years does not show improvement.
In January 2025, inspectors documented 10 high-severity violations in a single visit, the highest single-inspection count in the recent record. That was followed by 5 high-severity violations in July 2025 and 3 in January 2026. The August 2026 inspection, with 8 high-severity violations, is the second-highest single-visit total in the past three years.
Go back further and the record holds. In August 2023, inspectors cited 8 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations. A follow-up visit the next day, August 15 to August 16, dropped to 2 high-severity violations, suggesting the most acute problems were corrected. But the pattern of returning to high counts at subsequent inspections has continued without interruption.
The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its inspection history. Not after the 10-violation visit in January 2025. Not after the 8-violation visit in August 2023. Not after August 11, 2026.
Still Open
State inspectors have the authority to order an emergency closure when violations pose an immediate threat to public health. That threshold was not reached on August 11, despite 8 high-severity violations that included undercooked food, contaminated food, improperly stored toxic chemicals, and no mechanism to keep sick employees off the line.
Fuji Express Hibachi and Sushi was open for business when the inspector left.
