GROVELAND, FL. State inspectors visiting Ikaho Sushi on SR 50 in May found the restaurant serving food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means there is no chain of custody, no USDA or FDA inspection record, and no way to trace an illness back to its origin if a customer gets sick.
That was one of eleven high-severity violations documented during the May 20 inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspection also found that food was not cooked to the required minimum temperature. At a sushi restaurant, that finding applies to any cooked items on the menu, and at temperatures below the required threshold, Salmonella and other pathogens survive.
Inspectors further documented that no consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods. At a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is a core menu item, that omission leaves elderly diners, pregnant women, and anyone with a compromised immune system without the basic warning the state requires.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. Alongside the food sourcing and cooking violations, that finding meant the kitchen had multiple simultaneous vectors for customer harm on a single afternoon.
The person in charge was either absent or not performing required oversight duties. CDC data cited in the inspection record links that condition directly to higher rates of critical violations throughout a facility.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. When a restaurant buys fish or meat outside the licensed supply chain, that food has not been inspected for Listeria, Salmonella, or other contaminants. If a customer gets sick, there is no supplier record to trace, no lot number to pull, no way to know how many other restaurants received the same product.
The employee illness violations compound the risk. Ikaho Sushi had no written employee health policy and no system for workers to report symptoms. Norovirus, the pathogen most commonly spread by sick food workers, causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year. A single infected employee working a dinner shift can expose every customer who orders that night.
Improper handwashing technique is distinct from simply skipping handwashing. It means employees made an attempt but left pathogens on their hands anyway, and then touched food or food contact surfaces. When those surfaces are also documented as improperly cleaned and sanitized, the contamination pathway from worker to customer is essentially uninterrupted.
The time-as-public-health-control violation is specific to sushi operations. When a restaurant opts to track time rather than temperature for certain foods, state rules require strict logging and disposal protocols. Inspectors found those protocols were not properly followed, meaning food could have sat in the bacterial growth zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, for an undocumented period before being served.
The Longer Record
Ikaho Sushi Inspection History
The May 20 inspection was the 27th on record for Ikaho Sushi. Across those 27 visits, inspectors have documented 228 total violations.
The restaurant logged eight high-severity violations twice in December 2025, three days apart, suggesting that a follow-up inspection after the first visit still found the same category of problems. The May 2026 inspection raised that number to eleven high-severity citations in a single visit, the worst single-inspection total in the available record.
High-severity violations have appeared in every inspection going back to at least April 2023. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
Open for Business
Despite eleven high-severity violations documented on May 20, including unapproved food sources, undercooked food, no illness reporting system for employees, and improperly stored toxic chemicals, Ikaho Sushi was not ordered closed.
It remained open.