JACKSONVILLE, FL. An employee at Fuji on San Marco Boulevard was not reporting symptoms of illness to management, according to a state inspection conducted August 11, meaning a sick food worker may have been handling the raw fish, sushi rice, and other dishes that went directly to customers.
That was one of seven high-severity violations documented at the Jacksonville restaurant during the August 11 visit. The state did not close the restaurant.
What Inspectors Found
The full list of seven high-severity violations covers nearly every point at which a customer could be harmed. Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards and prep areas where raw fish is broken down and sushi is assembled, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled near food areas. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted to warn customers that raw or undercooked items carry elevated risk for pregnant women, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system.
Inspectors also cited inadequate shell stock identification and records. Fuji serves raw and lightly cooked shellfish, and without proper tagging and documentation, there is no way to trace where those oysters, clams, or mussels came from if a customer gets sick.
On top of the high-severity findings, three intermediate violations were documented: multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, improper use of wiping cloths, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
The restaurant passed a follow-up inspection two days later, on August 13, with zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations.
What These Violations Mean
The employee illness reporting failure is the violation that public health officials most consistently link to large-scale outbreaks. Norovirus, the most common cause of foodborne illness in restaurant settings, spreads primarily through infected food workers who continue handling food while symptomatic. A single sick employee preparing sushi rolls or handling shellfish can expose dozens of customers in a single shift.
The shell stock identification failure compounds that risk in a specific way. Shellfish are filter feeders that concentrate bacteria and viruses from surrounding water, and they are often eaten raw or barely cooked at a sushi restaurant. When tags and harvest records are missing or incomplete, health investigators cannot trace a shellfish-linked illness back to a specific harvest lot or supplier. That traceability gap matters most when an outbreak is already underway.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces and multi-use utensils create a separate contamination pathway. Bacterial biofilms, layers of bacteria that bond to surfaces and resist normal cleaning, can form on cutting boards and prep tools within 24 hours of inadequate sanitation. At a restaurant that handles raw fish daily, that timeline is unforgiving.
The chemical storage violation adds a different category of risk entirely. Sanitizers, cleaners, and pesticides stored near food or without proper labeling can cause acute poisoning through direct contamination, not through the slower process of bacterial growth.
The Longer Record
The August 11 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Fuji has been inspected 24 times, accumulating 363 total violations over its history, and has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern in the recent inspection history is consistent and steep. The April 2025 inspection found 10 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. The October 2025 inspection found 10 high and 3 intermediate. The April 2026 inspection found 10 high and 2 intermediate. The numbers have barely moved across four consecutive inspections spanning more than a year.
Going back further, the May 2024 inspection found 8 high and 4 intermediate violations. A separate inspection just three weeks earlier, on May 1, 2024, found 12 high and 4 intermediate violations. The December 2023 inspection found 13 high and 3 intermediate violations, the highest single-visit high-severity count in the recent record.
What the history shows is not a restaurant that had a bad week. It is a restaurant that has logged between 8 and 13 high-severity violations on nearly every inspection for the better part of three years, passed follow-up inspections, and then returned to the same violation counts at the next routine visit.
Still Open
The August 13 follow-up inspection cleared Fuji to continue operating. Under Florida's inspection framework, passing a callback inspection after a high-violation visit is sufficient to remain open, regardless of how many times that cycle has repeated.
Fuji has cycled through that pattern at least eight times in the records reviewed, logging high double-digit violation counts, passing follow-ups, and arriving at the next inspection with the same categories of failures documented again.
Seven high-severity violations on August 11. A clean bill two days later. Three hundred and sixty-three violations across 24 inspections. The restaurant is open.
