VALRICO, FL. State inspectors visited Robongi Sushi Wok & Grill at 2519 E State Road 60 on June 3 and documented that the restaurant was serving food from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means inspectors could not confirm where the food came from or whether it had passed any federal safety inspection. The restaurant was not closed.

The June 3 inspection turned up six high-severity violations and zero intermediate ones. Every violation logged that day was in the most serious category the state uses.

What Inspectors Found

1HIGHFood from unapproved or unknown sourceHigh severity
2HIGHNo employee health policy or inadequate policyHigh severity
3HIGHInadequate handwashing facilitiesHigh severity
4HIGHImproper hand and arm washing techniqueHigh severity
5HIGHFood contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitizedHigh severity
6HIGHToxic chemicals improperly stored or labeledHigh severity

Beyond the unapproved food source, inspectors cited the restaurant for having no adequate employee health policy. That means there was no written system in place to keep sick workers out of food preparation.

Inspectors also found inadequate handwashing facilities and documented that employees were using improper hand and arm washing technique. Those two violations appeared on the same inspection report, meaning the problem was not just infrastructure but practice.

Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. And toxic chemicals were improperly stored or labeled, placing them in proximity to food or without clear identification.

What These Violations Mean

The unapproved food source violation is the one that reaches customers before they ever sit down. When food bypasses USDA or FDA inspection channels, there is no traceability if someone gets sick. Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli can be present in uninspected product, and there is no paper trail to follow an outbreak back to its origin. At a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is central to the menu, that gap is not abstract.

The handwashing violations compound the risk in a direct way. Inspectors found both that the physical facilities were inadequate and that the technique being used was wrong. Improper handwashing leaves pathogens on hands even when an employee makes the attempt. At a restaurant handling raw fish and ready-to-eat food, that is a transmission route for Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year.

The absence of an employee health policy means there is no formal mechanism to pull a sick worker off the line. Combined with improper handwashing, that creates a direct path from an ill employee to a customer's plate.

Improperly stored or unlabeled toxic chemicals present a separate category of risk. Chemicals stored near food or without clear labeling can contaminate food through spills or mislabeled containers, causing acute poisoning that can be difficult to diagnose because it does not look like a typical foodborne illness.

The Longer Record

The June 3 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Robongi has been inspected 24 times and has accumulated 202 total violations across its history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.

The November 2025 inspection, less than seven months before this one, produced seven high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. That was the highest single-visit high-severity count in the facility's recent record until June 3 matched it. The March 2025 inspection found four high-severity violations. The January 2024 inspection found four high-severity violations. The August 2023 inspection found four high-severity violations.

The pattern across those inspections is consistent: high-severity violations appear, the restaurant is not closed, and a subsequent inspection finds more. The January 2025 inspection logged zero high-severity violations, as did the February 2023 inspection, which suggests the restaurant is capable of meeting standards. But the record between those clean visits is a series of four-to-seven high-severity citations, and June 3 reached six.

Robongi Sushi: High-Severity Violation History

June 3, 20266 high-severity violations. Food from unapproved source, no health policy, handwashing failures, unsanitized surfaces, toxic chemicals improperly stored.
November 10, 20257 high-severity, 2 intermediate violations.
March 28, 20254 high-severity, 2 intermediate violations.
January 23, 20251 high-severity, 3 intermediate violations.
January 29, 20250 high-severity, 0 intermediate violations.
January 31, 20244 high-severity, 2 intermediate violations.
August 23, 20234 high-severity, 1 intermediate violation.
February 7, 20230 high-severity, 0 intermediate violations.

Still Open

Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when inspectors determine a facility poses an immediate threat to public health. Six high-severity violations, including food from an unverifiable source and toxic chemicals stored improperly near food, did not meet that threshold at Robongi on June 3.

The restaurant was open for business after the inspection.