MELBOURNE, FL. State inspectors visited Sushi Factory at 3700 N. Wickham Road on July 23, 2026, and documented food coming from unapproved or unknown sources — a violation that means inspectors could not verify whether the fish and other ingredients on the menu had ever passed a federal safety inspection.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The July 23 inspection produced six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. The high-severity list covered nearly every stage of food handling: where the food came from, what condition it was in, how surfaces were cleaned, how employees washed their hands, and whether customers were warned about raw fish at all.
Inspectors cited the restaurant for food in poor condition, mislabeled, or adulterated, a violation that can indicate spoilage or contamination that would not be visible to a customer ordering a roll. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, creating a direct path for bacterial transfer between ingredients.
Employees demonstrated improper hand and arm washing technique, meaning pathogens can remain on hands even after a handwashing attempt. The restaurant also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods and no allergen awareness demonstrated by staff.
The two intermediate violations added sewage or wastewater disposal problems and improper sanitizing solution or procedures to the list.
What These Violations Mean
The unapproved food source citation is particularly serious at a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is the central product. When food bypasses USDA or FDA inspection channels, there is no traceability if a customer gets sick. Listeria and Salmonella contamination in raw fish cannot be detected by sight or smell, and without a documented supply chain, there is no way to identify the source of an outbreak after the fact.
The absence of allergen awareness at a sushi restaurant compounds the risk. Sushi menus routinely include shellfish, soy, sesame, and fish, which are among the most common severe allergen triggers. Food allergies affect 32 million Americans, and allergic reactions send 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. When staff cannot demonstrate awareness of which dishes contain which allergens, a customer with a shellfish allergy who asks a server has no reliable answer.
The no consumer advisory violation matters most to the most vulnerable diners. Pregnant women, elderly customers, and people with compromised immune systems face elevated risk from raw fish, including parasites and bacteria that a healthy adult might clear without symptoms. A posted advisory is a baseline warning that customers at Sushi Factory were not given on the day of this inspection.
Improper sewage disposal in a food preparation environment introduces fecal contamination risk throughout the facility. Combined with food contact surfaces that were not properly sanitized and a sanitizing solution that was not at the correct concentration, the inspection describes a kitchen where contamination from multiple sources had no reliable barrier.
The Longer Record
The July 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Sushi Factory has been inspected 30 times and has accumulated 307 total violations across its history at the Wickham Road location.
The two most severe inspections on record both came in early 2023. In January of that year, inspectors documented 12 high-severity violations in a single visit. Two months later, in March 2023, they returned and found 9 high-severity violations. Neither inspection resulted in an emergency closure.
The pattern since then shows the violation counts dropped but never reached zero on the high-severity category. The February 2025 inspection produced 3 high-severity violations. The January 2026 inspection produced 2. The July 2026 inspection, the most recent, produced 6, the highest count in more than three years.
Some of the same violation categories have reappeared across multiple inspection cycles. Food contact surface sanitation, handwashing, and consumer advisory failures are not new findings at this address. The 30-inspection record with 307 total violations and zero emergency closures means the restaurant has never been ordered shut, regardless of what inspectors found on any given visit.
Still Open
A sushi restaurant depends on customer trust in a way that a kitchen serving only cooked food does not. Customers ordering raw fish are accepting a baseline level of risk and relying on the restaurant to manage it responsibly, through verified sourcing, trained staff, and clean surfaces.
On July 23, 2026, inspectors documented that Sushi Factory on Wickham Road had food from an unverified source, surfaces that were not properly sanitized, employees who were not washing their hands correctly, and staff who could not demonstrate allergen awareness.
The restaurant remained open.
