CLERMONT, FL. A state inspector visiting Kizuna Sushi and Hibachi on South Highway 27 in late July found food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means some of what was being served to customers had bypassed every federal safety checkpoint designed to catch Listeria, Salmonella, and other pathogens before they reach a plate.
That was one of ten high-severity violations documented during the July 28 inspection. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also found that food was not being cooked to required minimum temperatures. At a hibachi restaurant, that includes poultry, and Salmonella survives in chicken cooked below 165 degrees Fahrenheit. The record does not specify which menu items were affected.
Employees were documented as not reporting illness symptoms, and the restaurant had no written employee health policy in place. Those two violations together describe a kitchen where a sick worker had no formal obligation to stay home and no documented expectation that management would enforce one.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled, and a second related citation noted toxic substances were improperly identified, stored, or used. Two separate chemical violations in a single inspection, at a restaurant where food preparation was already flagged for sanitation failures, describes an environment where the hazards were not limited to biological contamination.
Staff demonstrated no allergen awareness. The restaurant also lacked a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods, which at a sushi restaurant is a direct concern for pregnant customers, elderly diners, and anyone with a compromised immune system who may not know to ask.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved sources is not a paperwork problem. When a restaurant obtains ingredients outside the licensed supply chain, there is no traceability. If a customer gets sick, investigators cannot identify the source lot, cannot issue a recall, and cannot determine how many other restaurants received the same product. At a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is a staple, the sourcing of seafood is particularly consequential.
The combination of no employee health policy and employees not reporting illness symptoms describes a single, compounding failure. Food workers are the primary transmission route for Norovirus, which spreads through contaminated food and causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. A kitchen with no written policy and no reporting expectation is a kitchen where a sick employee has little structural reason to stay away from the line.
Improper handwashing technique is distinct from not washing hands at all. An employee can go through the motions of handwashing and still transfer pathogens if the technique is wrong. Combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and multi-use utensils that were not properly cleaned, the inspection describes multiple overlapping contamination pathways operating at the same time.
The allergen violation carries its own urgency. Food allergies affect roughly 32 million Americans. At a restaurant with no demonstrated allergen awareness, a customer with a shellfish or sesame allergy has no reliable way to know whether their order is safe.
The Longer Record
Kizuna Sushi and Hibachi: Inspection History
The July 2026 inspection is not an outlier. It is a return to form.
State records show five inspections on file for Kizuna Sushi and Hibachi, with 59 total violations across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
In September 2025, inspectors found 10 high-severity and 5 intermediate violations. The following month, October 2025, the count was 10 high-severity and 3 intermediate. Then, in November 2025, a follow-up visit found just one high-severity violation, suggesting corrections had been made. The August 2025 inspection, the one visit with zero violations across either severity tier, stands as the single clean record in an otherwise consistent pattern of serious citations.
The July 2026 inspection matches the September and October 2025 inspections almost exactly in high-severity count. Three inspections across ten months, each with ten high-priority violations, at the same address.
The restaurant served customers through all of it, and it remained open after July 28.
