FERNANDINA BEACH, FL. When a state inspector walked into Hana Sushi at 1930 S 14th Street on May 20, 2026, the findings included food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers — a violation that means inspectors could not verify whether the ingredients had passed any federal safety screening before reaching customers' plates.
Six high-severity violations. Zero intermediate violations. And the restaurant remained open.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is the kind that draws immediate attention at a sushi restaurant. Inspectors cited Hana Sushi for obtaining food from an unapproved or unknown source, meaning there is no documented chain of custody showing the ingredients came through a supplier vetted by the USDA or FDA.
At the same visit, inspectors cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification and records. Shellfish — oysters, clams, mussels — are among the highest-risk foods served in any restaurant because they are frequently eaten raw or lightly cooked, and without proper tagging records, there is no way to trace them back to a certified harvest area if a customer gets sick.
Also documented: an employee not reporting symptoms of illness, improper handwashing technique, no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, and toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled.
That is every violation logged on May 20 falling into the highest severity category the state uses.
What These Violations Mean
The food sourcing violation carries a specific danger at a restaurant that serves raw fish. When food arrives from an unapproved or unknown supplier, it has bypassed the federal inspection system designed to screen for Listeria, Salmonella, and other pathogens. If a customer becomes ill, investigators have no supply chain to trace.
The shell stock records violation compounds that problem. State and federal rules require shellfish tags to be retained so health officials can identify the harvest location, the harvest date, and the dealer if an outbreak is linked to contaminated shellfish. Without those records at Hana Sushi, that investigation trail does not exist.
The employee illness reporting failure is the violation most directly tied to mass outbreaks. Norovirus spreads with exceptional efficiency when a sick food handler continues working, and the entire point of the reporting requirement is to catch that risk before it reaches the dining room. The fact that this was documented alongside improper handwashing technique — meaning that even when employees attempted to wash their hands, the method left pathogens behind — represents two compounding failures in the same protective chain.
The absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods is a specific legal requirement at any restaurant serving sushi or sashimi. Pregnant women, elderly customers, and anyone with a compromised immune system are at significantly elevated risk from raw fish, and the advisory is the mechanism the state uses to ensure they can make an informed choice. Customers at Hana Sushi on May 20 had no such notice. The toxic chemical storage violation adds a separate category of acute risk: improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, or be mistaken for food-safe products by employees.
The Longer Record
The May 2026 inspection does not represent an isolated bad day. State records show Hana Sushi has been inspected 29 times and has accumulated 277 total violations across that history, with no emergency closures on record.
The pattern in the most recent years is consistent. Inspectors found 9 high-severity violations in November 2025, 8 high-severity violations in February 2025, 6 high-severity violations in October 2024, and 5 high-severity violations in January 2024. The one clean inspection in that stretch came on December 30, 2025, when the restaurant logged zero high-severity violations — a result that appears to have preceded the return to six high-severity findings five months later.
Going back further, the restaurant recorded 4 high-severity violations in both August 2023 and January 2023, and 1 high-severity violation in September 2022. The trajectory over four years is not improvement. High-severity violation counts have climbed from the low single digits in 2022 to a range of 5 to 9 per inspection through most of 2024 and 2025.
The food sourcing and shellfish traceability violations documented in May 2026 are not among the categories that tend to appear by accident. They require either an active choice to use an uninspected supplier or a failure to maintain records that the restaurant is required by law to keep.
Still Open
State inspectors left Hana Sushi open after the May 20 visit despite all six violations falling into the highest severity tier.
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when inspectors determine an imminent threat to public health exists. Six high-severity violations at a raw fish restaurant, including an unknown food source and no shellfish traceability records, did not meet that threshold on this occasion.
Hana Sushi was serving customers after the inspector walked out the door.