PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. Back in January 2025, a state inspector visiting Genji Sushi #10194 at a Palm Beach Gardens retail location found multiple packages of freshly made sushi sitting at temperatures between 44 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly three hours after they were prepared.
The packages, which included salmon sashimi, tuna and salmon sushi, and chicken dumplings, had been made at 8:30 a.m. and were inside an open-air cooler in the retail area. When the inspector probed them with a thermometer at 11:15 a.m., none were at or below the 41-degree threshold required for ready-to-eat seafood and sushi products. All items were moved to the freezer during the visit.
What Inspectors Found
The temperature problem was not the only priority-level finding. The inspector also observed an employee who re-entered the food processing area and began preparing sushi without washing hands before putting on gloves. The inspector discussed proper hand-washing procedure with the employee, who then washed their hands during the visit.
A third citation involved the facility's HACCP plan, which governs how sushi rice is acidified to prevent bacterial growth. The person in charge calibrated the pH meter in the wrong sequence, running the 4-buffer solution before the 7-buffer solution, the reverse of what the HACCP plan requires. The person in charge also failed to add the 4-buffer solution into the cap of the pH meter after completing the rice pH measurement before storing the device.
The inspector found a handwashing sink in the food processing area blocked by trash placed in front of it. An employee removed the trash during the visit. The person in charge also could not correctly answer questions about foodborne illness symptoms, exclusion, and restriction procedures, and an employee health guide was provided on the spot.
Rounding out the five violations: the sanitation operation log had not been filled out for the day of the inspection, and the monthly verification of the sanitation operation log had not been obtained.
None of the five violations were marked as corrected on site in the formal sense. The report's corrected-on-site count is zero, meaning while some issues were addressed during the visit, the inspector did not formally close them as corrected.
What These Violations Mean
Temperature control violations at a sushi counter carry specific risks that differ from a typical grocery deli. Raw fish, including salmon and tuna, supports the growth of pathogens like Listeria, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus when held above 41 degrees. At 44 to 50 degrees for nearly three hours, the products found at Genji in January 2025 were well into the range where bacterial multiplication accelerates.
The HACCP plan deviation matters for the same reason. Sushi rice is acidified to lower its pH and inhibit bacterial growth, a process that requires precise calibration of the pH meter. Calibrating in the wrong sequence, as the person in charge did here, risks inaccurate pH readings, which means rice could be served without adequate acidification. If a customer became sick from improperly acidified sushi rice, the log failures documented in this inspection would make it harder to trace exactly what was prepared, when, and under what conditions.
The hand-washing violation is a direct transmission risk. An employee who handles gloves, surfaces, or other objects and then begins touching food without washing hands can transfer contaminants from anything they touched outside the processing area directly onto ready-to-eat sushi. Gloves are not a substitute for hand-washing; they trap whatever was on the hands when they were put on.
The person-in-charge knowledge gap is a systemic concern. A manager who cannot correctly describe when a sick employee must be excluded from food handling is less likely to catch or act on early signs of illness in staff, which is one of the primary ways norovirus and other pathogens spread through food service environments.
The Longer Record
The January 6, 2025 inspection was not this location's first brush with violations. State records show 30 total inspections on file for this facility, with 138 total violations accumulated across that history and two emergency closures on record.
The five violations found in January 2025 were not marked as repeats, meaning inspectors did not formally flag them as problems previously cited at this specific location. That detail matters: it suggests these were not the same documented failures cycling back through the record, but new findings at a facility that has nonetheless accumulated a substantial violation total over time.
The inspection history available in state records shows a cluster of clean focused inspections after January 2025, with zero violations recorded on visits in August 2025, October 2025, December 2025, and March 2026. A January 2024 focused inspection also came back clean.
The two emergency closures in this facility's history are not detailed in the available inspection records for this article. What the record does show is a facility that has had significant compliance problems over 30 inspections, reached a point of documented failures in January 2025, and then produced a series of clean focused inspections in the months that followed.
None of the five violations from January 6, 2025 were formally marked corrected on site. The sushi packages that reached 50 degrees were moved to the freezer during the visit, but the sanitation log remained unfilled for that day.
