NEW PORT RICHEY, FL. State inspectors visiting Hibachi Express on Little Road on May 20 found the restaurant serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means no government inspector ever checked whether that food was safe to eat.
That was one of six high-severity violations documented during the visit. The restaurant was not emergency-closed.
What Inspectors Found
The food sourcing violation is among the most serious an inspector can document. Food purchased outside the regulated supply chain carries no guarantee it was inspected, handled at proper temperatures, or free of contamination before it arrived at the restaurant.
Inspectors also found that employees were not reporting illness symptoms, that handwashing facilities were inadequate, and that food contact surfaces were not being properly cleaned or sanitized. No consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked items, meaning customers with no idea they were at elevated risk were eating without warning.
The seventh violation, classified as intermediate, involved improper sewage or wastewater disposal.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is a traceability problem as much as a safety problem. If a customer gets sick, investigators need a supply chain to trace the contamination back to its origin. Without approved sourcing records, that chain does not exist. The food could harbor Listeria, Salmonella, or other pathogens with no inspection record anywhere in its history.
The illness reporting failure compounds that risk directly. Food workers are the most common transmission route in multi-victim outbreaks. A sick employee who does not report symptoms, working at a station with inadequate handwashing facilities and improperly sanitized surfaces, is a near-complete set of conditions for spreading illness to customers.
The sewage violation adds a separate layer of concern. Improper wastewater disposal creates the possibility of fecal contamination reaching surfaces, equipment, or food preparation areas. Combined with food contact surfaces that inspectors found were not being properly cleaned, the risk does not stay contained to one part of the kitchen.
The absence of a manager actively performing oversight duties connects all of these. CDC data cited in the inspection record indicates establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with engaged supervision. Every other violation on this list is the kind that attentive management is supposed to catch and correct before an inspector arrives.
The Pattern
The May 20 inspection was not an outlier. It was the seventh time in roughly three years that Hibachi Express has been cited for six or more high-severity violations in a single visit.
Inspectors documented six high violations on December 15, 2025. Six high violations on June 3, 2025. Five high violations on December 17, 2024. Six high violations on January 25, 2024. Eight high violations on July 27, 2023.
The facility has 16 inspections on record and 118 total violations across that history. It has never been emergency-closed.
The Longer Record
Hibachi Express, Little Road: Inspection History
The inspection history at Hibachi Express does not show a restaurant that had a bad stretch and corrected course. It shows a facility where six high-severity violations per visit has become the baseline.
The violations are not random from inspection to inspection. The absence of an engaged person in charge, the failure to ensure employees report illness, the food contact surface sanitation failures: these are recurring categories, not one-time lapses. A facility accumulating 118 violations across 16 inspections, in largely the same categories, is not a facility that is fixing problems between visits.
January 2024 produced the one inspection in recent history where the high violation count dropped to two. Every inspection before and after that visit returned to five, six, or eight high-severity findings.
Hibachi Express has never been emergency-closed. As of May 20, 2026, it remained open for business.