PORT RICHEY, FL. Inspectors visiting Grand Sushi Hibachi Buffet on US Highway 19 on July 17 found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers being served to customers, a violation that means the restaurant had no way to trace where its ingredients came from or whether they had passed any federal safety inspection.
The buffet was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The July 17 inspection produced nine high-severity violations and six intermediate ones. Among the high-severity citations: food was not cooked to the required minimum temperature, meaning customers at the buffet were served dishes in which pathogens like Salmonella could have survived. Toxic substances were improperly identified, stored, or used, creating a direct chemical contamination risk to food.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Inspectors also cited two separate handwashing failures: employees were not washing their hands adequately, and those who did attempt to wash were using improper technique.
There was no employee health policy on site. No consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods was posted, meaning customers with compromised immune systems, elderly diners, pregnant women, and children had no warning that dishes on the buffet line carried elevated risk.
The person in charge was either not present or not performing duties. That single citation often signals to inspectors that everything else they find is downstream of the same problem.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved or unknown sources is one of the most serious categories an inspector can document at a buffet operation. When a restaurant cannot identify where its ingredients came from, there is no chain of accountability if a customer gets sick. USDA and FDA traceability systems exist precisely to allow health officials to pull contaminated product from the supply chain. Food that bypasses those systems, potentially carrying Listeria, Salmonella, or E. coli, arrives with no paper trail and no recall mechanism.
Undercooking compounds that risk directly. Poultry not brought to 165 degrees Fahrenheit can carry live Salmonella to the plate. At a buffet, where dozens of customers serve themselves from the same trays over the course of hours, a single underdone batch is not a contained event.
The two handwashing violations at Grand Sushi Hibachi Buffet on July 17 are worth reading as a pair. One citation means employees were skipping handwashing. The second means that when they did wash, they were doing it wrong. Improper technique leaves pathogens on hands even after a washing attempt, and studies show it can be nearly as ineffective as no washing at all. In a kitchen without an active person in charge, neither failure is likely to be caught or corrected mid-shift.
Improper sewage or wastewater disposal, one of the six intermediate violations, adds a layer that goes beyond kitchen hygiene. Raw sewage contains fecal coliform bacteria and can contaminate surfaces, equipment, and food throughout a facility if not handled correctly.
The Longer Record
The July 17 inspection did not happen in isolation. The day before, on July 16, inspectors had already cited the restaurant for 13 high-severity violations and 7 intermediate ones. That prior visit, the most violation-heavy single inspection in the recent record, apparently did not trigger a closure either.
Grand Sushi Hibachi Buffet has 60 inspections on record and a cumulative total of 799 violations. The facility has been emergency-closed twice before: once in September 2021 for roach activity, and again in November 2022 when the restaurant was found to have no potable water. Both times it was allowed to reopen the same day.
The pattern in the inspection history is not one of steady decline. It is one of oscillation. The restaurant logged zero high-severity violations in July and June of 2025, then seven high-severity violations in a follow-up visit just three days after one of those clean inspections. It logged zero violations again in February 2025, then four high-severity violations the following month. The clean inspections do not appear to hold.
The two-day stretch of July 16 and July 17, 2026, with a combined 22 high-severity violations across back-to-back inspections, represents the steepest consecutive accumulation in the recent record. A facility that has now crossed 800 total documented violations over its inspection history remained in operation through both days.
Open for Business
State inspectors documented nine high-severity violations at Grand Sushi Hibachi Buffet on July 17. They documented thirteen the day before. The restaurant was not emergency-closed on either occasion.
Customers who ate at the buffet on either of those days had no way of knowing that the food on the line may have come from suppliers the state had never approved, that dishes may not have reached safe cooking temperatures, or that the people preparing their food were not washing their hands correctly.
The restaurant remained open.
