PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. Back in January 2025, a state agriculture inspector walked into the retail area of Genji Sushi #10194, a seafood market inside a Palm Beach Gardens grocery store, and found packages of freshly made sushi sitting in an open-air cooler at temperatures between 44 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly three hours after they had been prepared.
The packages, including salmon sashimi, tuna and salmon sushi, and chicken dumplings, had been made at 8:30 a.m. When the inspector probed them with a thermometer at 11:15 a.m., none were at the 41-degree maximum required for ready-to-eat seafood products. All of them were moved to a freezer to cool down during the visit.
What Inspectors Found
The temperature finding was one of two priority violations, the most serious category under state food safety rules. The second involved the facility's HACCP plan, a written food safety protocol that Genji operates under as a condition of its special process approval from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
The inspector found that the person in charge had calibrated the pH meter used to test sushi rice in the wrong order, running the 4-buffer solution before the 7-buffer solution, the reverse of what the approved 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 it. The inspector discussed the correct procedure with the person in charge during the visit.
A third violation involved an employee who re-entered the food processing area, pulled on gloves, and began preparing sushi without first washing hands. The inspector observed this directly and discussed proper hand-washing protocol with the employee, who then washed hands during the visit.
The hand-washing sink in the food processing area was also blocked. Trash had been placed in front of it. An employee removed the trash during the inspection.
The person in charge was unable to correctly answer questions about foodborne illnesses, symptoms, or the rules for excluding or restricting sick employees from food handling duties. The inspector provided and reviewed an employee health guide on site.
Finally, the sanitation operation log had not been filled out for that day, and the required monthly verification of the log had not been obtained.
None of the five violations had been corrected before the inspector arrived. All were addressed during the visit, according to the inspection record.
What These Violations Mean
Temperature control is the central food safety concern at any location preparing raw fish for retail sale. Salmon and tuna are among the highest-risk proteins for bacterial growth when held above 41 degrees. The sushi packages at Genji sat at temperatures as high as 50 degrees for nearly three hours, a window long enough for pathogens including Listeria and Staphylococcus aureus to multiply in ready-to-eat food that will not be cooked again before a customer eats it.
The HACCP violation is a separate but related concern. Genji operates under a state-approved food safety plan specifically because it handles raw fish and acidifies sushi rice, a process that requires precise pH measurement to be safe. The pH of sushi rice must fall within a specific range to inhibit bacterial growth. When the pH meter is calibrated incorrectly, the readings it produces cannot be trusted. A meter calibrated out of sequence at this location on January 6, 2025, means the rice pH measurements taken that day may not have been accurate.
The person in charge's inability to answer basic questions about foodborne illness and employee exclusion is a structural problem, not a paperwork one. A supervisor who cannot identify when a sick employee should be kept away from food handling cannot make that call in real time. That gap in knowledge is precisely what state inspectors are trained to probe.
The blocked hand-washing sink compounds the hand-washing violation found in the same visit. An employee who skips hand-washing before donning gloves, in a facility where the hand-washing sink is also obstructed, is operating in an environment where the physical and behavioral barriers to contamination have both broken down at the same time.
The Longer Record
The January 6, 2025 inspection was not an isolated event at this address. State records show 30 total inspections on file for this location, with 138 total violations documented across that history. The facility has been emergency-closed twice.
The five violations found in January 2025 were not marked as repeats, meaning the inspector did not flag them as problems that had been cited in the immediately preceding inspection. But a facility with 138 violations and two emergency closures across 30 inspections carries a record that context requires acknowledging.
The inspections recorded after January 2025 tell a different story. Focused inspections in October 2025, December 2025, and March 2026 each resulted in zero violations. A preoperational inspection in August 2025 also found no violations. The January 2025 findings appear to have prompted corrections that held through subsequent visits.
The zero-violation streak across four inspections following the January 2025 citation is the most recent data available. What the record shows is a facility that accumulated 138 violations over its history, was emergency-closed twice, found five violations including two priority-level findings on January 6, 2025, and then passed four consecutive inspections. Whether the January 2025 findings were the turning point, or whether the pattern will continue, the full inspection record remains on file.
