MIAMI, FL. An employee at Sushi Maki on North Kendall Drive was documented not reporting symptoms of illness during an August 18 inspection that found food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, toxic chemicals improperly stored near food, and no consumer advisory warning customers that raw fish could make them sick. The restaurant was not closed.
State inspectors cited eight high-severity violations and one intermediate violation during that visit. The facility remained open through and after the inspection.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting violation stands out at a restaurant that serves raw fish. A worker who fails to disclose symptoms of illness, norovirus in particular, can contaminate food before anyone knows there is a problem. At a sushi counter, where raw product moves directly from preparation to the customer's plate, there is no cooking step to kill what a sick employee leaves behind.
The food temperature violation compounds that. State code requires certain foods to reach minimum internal temperatures to kill pathogens like salmonella. When that threshold is not met, the food reaches the customer with the bacteria still in it.
Toxic chemicals stored or labeled improperly near food represent a different category of danger. A mislabeled chemical, or one placed where it can drip or spill onto a prep surface, can cause acute poisoning with no warning and no visible sign that anything went wrong.
The inspector also documented that food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, and that both handwashing facilities were inadequate and employee handwashing technique was incorrect. Those three findings together describe a kitchen where contamination can move freely from surface to hand to food.
No consumer advisory was posted to warn diners that raw or undercooked items carry additional risk for people who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised. At a sushi restaurant, that disclosure is not optional. It is required precisely because the menu is built around raw fish.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of violations documented on August 18 traces a direct path from kitchen to customer. When a person in charge is absent or not performing duties, the oversight that catches smaller problems before they become dangerous ones disappears. CDC data shows that establishments without active managerial control accumulate critical violations at three times the rate of those with it. Every other violation found that day exists, in part, because no one in authority was enforcing the standards.
The employee illness and handwashing violations work together. Improper technique leaves pathogens on hands even when a worker attempts to wash. Inadequate facilities make proper washing impossible in the first place. At a facility where employees handle raw fish, both failures put customers at direct risk of exposure to whatever the worker is carrying.
The food temperature violation is the one with the most immediate consequence. Undercooking is a leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks. At a restaurant where raw preparation is already central to the menu, serving cooked items that also did not reach safe temperatures means customers had no cooked option that was reliably safe either.
The missing consumer advisory matters most for the people who have the least margin for error: pregnant women, older adults, and anyone with a compromised immune system. Without the advisory, those customers could not make an informed choice about what they ordered.
The Longer Record
The August 18 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Sushi Maki has 29 inspections on file and 235 total violations documented across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The pattern in the most recent inspections is consistent. On December 3, 2025, inspectors found eight high-severity violations and two intermediate. The day before, on December 2, they found ten high-severity violations and two intermediate. On July 22, 2025, the count was seven high-severity and three intermediate. On January 6, 2025, it was six high-severity and three intermediate.
That is four separate inspections in less than a year, each producing between six and ten high-severity violations. The August 2026 inspection, with eight high-severity citations, sits in the middle of that range.
Going further back, a September 2024 inspection found five high-severity violations and two intermediate. An April 2024 inspection found seven high-severity violations and three intermediate. The single visit in the record that produced the fewest high-severity citations, one, came in June 2024, and it still produced two intermediate violations.
The violations documented in August 2026, including the illness-reporting failure, the temperature problem, and the chemical storage issue, are not the product of a bad day. The record shows eight inspections in roughly two years, most of them producing high-severity violation counts in the same range as this one.
Still Open
After the August 18 inspection, with eight high-severity violations on the report, Sushi Maki remained open. State inspectors did not issue an emergency closure order.
The restaurant serves raw fish.
