DAVENPORT, FL. A state inspector walked into Mikado Sushi on Aegean Way on October 1 and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, a violation that means there is no way to trace where that food came from if a customer gets sick.
The inspector left behind a report citing six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food source violation is among the most serious a sushi restaurant can receive. At a facility that serves raw fish, knowing where that fish came from, and that it passed federal inspection, is the first line of defense against Listeria and Salmonella.
Inspectors also documented that handwashing facilities were inadequate and that employees were using improper technique when they did wash their hands. Those are two separate violations, meaning the problem was not just the sink, it was also the practice.
Food contact surfaces, the cutting boards and prep surfaces where raw fish is handled, were not properly cleaned or sanitized. The inspector also found that the restaurant was not using time as a public health control correctly, a method that requires strict tracking of how long food sits in the temperature danger zone between 41 and 135 degrees.
There was no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. At a sushi restaurant, that omission matters most for elderly diners, pregnant women, young children, and anyone with a compromised immune system, all of whom face elevated risk from raw fish.
The two intermediate violations added sewage or wastewater disposal problems and improperly cleaned multi-use utensils to the list.
What These Violations Mean
The unapproved food source violation is not a paperwork technicality. When food arrives without documentation linking it to a USDA- or FDA-inspected supplier, there is no chain of custody. If a customer becomes ill after eating there, investigators have nowhere to start. At Mikado Sushi, a restaurant that serves raw fish by design, that gap in traceability is acute.
The handwashing violations compound the risk. Inadequate facilities means employees physically could not wash their hands properly, even if they tried. The improper technique citation means that when washing did occur, it was not done in a way that removes pathogens. Together, those two violations describe a kitchen where contaminated hands moved through food preparation without an effective barrier.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces are how bacteria travel from one item to another, from raw fish to a vegetable roll, from one customer's meal to the next. The time-control violation means food may have spent untracked time in the range where bacteria double roughly every 20 minutes.
The sewage disposal violation is the one that stops most readers cold. Improper wastewater handling introduces the possibility of fecal contamination in a facility where food is prepared and served. That is not a theoretical concern, it is a documented pathway for E. coli and norovirus.
The Longer Record
Mikado Sushi has only two inspections on record. The first, on October 31, 2025, found zero high-severity violations and zero intermediate violations. The restaurant passed cleanly.
Eleven months later, the same facility produced six high-severity violations in a single visit.
That is not a pattern of gradual decline. It is a steep drop between two inspections, with no documented intermediate warnings. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
Open for Business
State inspectors do not automatically close a restaurant for high-severity violations. Emergency closure requires an inspector to determine that conditions pose an immediate threat to public health, a judgment call that can account for whether problems were corrected on the spot, the nature of specific violations, and other factors not reflected in the public record.
What the public record does show is this: on October 1, 2026, a state inspector found food of unknown origin, inadequate handwashing infrastructure, improper handwashing technique, unsanitized food contact surfaces, misused time controls, a missing raw-fish advisory, sewage disposal problems, and unclean utensils at a sushi restaurant in Davenport.
Mikado Sushi remained open after the inspector left.
