DELRAY BEACH, FL. Back in March 2026, a state inspector walked into the seafood market counter at Sushi Maki Whole Food in Delray Beach and found sushi rolls sitting in an open-air, self-service reach-in cooler at temperatures between 43 and 48 degrees Fahrenheit, above the safe threshold for ready-to-eat seafood products. The rolls, which included surf side combo, salmon lover, cucumber avocado, and spicy bowl tuna and salmon with white rice, had been prepared two hours earlier and placed out for customers to grab themselves.
All of the out-of-temperature sushi was moved to a walk-in freezer to continue cooling during the visit. None of it had been corrected before inspectors arrived.
What Inspectors Found
The HACCP plan violations were layered. State records show the establishment's approved food safety plan requires zip bags to mix acidified rice and distilled water, but inspectors found a metal container being used instead. The plan also requires shaking the pH meter after cleaning as part of the calibration process, but staff were using a paper towel instead. Time stickers on acidified white rice, which are required to track a 96-hour allowance, were found to have already exceeded that window.
A proper date mark was applied during the visit. The pH calibration and measurement process were discussed with the person in charge on site.
The fourth violation was the absence of written procedures for handling vomiting and diarrhea events, a document state rules require to be available at the facility. It was not provided during the inspection.
The fifth violation was a repeat. Inspectors noted that a hose attached to a splitter on a threaded faucet at the produce wash sink in the backroom still required a backflow prevention device, and that device was still not positioned where it could be serviced and maintained. The same deficiency had been cited before.
None of the five violations had been corrected before inspectors arrived. The temperature issue and the date-marking problem were resolved during the visit, but the written vomiting and diarrhea procedures were never produced, and the backflow device remained unaddressed.
What These Violations Mean
Temperature control is the central safety concern at any sushi counter. Raw and prepared seafood, including salmon and tuna, must be held at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below to slow the growth of pathogens like Listeria and Salmonella. Sushi rolls sitting between 43 and 48 degrees in an open-air cooler, accessible to customers without staff intervention, means shoppers were selecting products that had already drifted into a temperature range where bacterial growth accelerates. The two-hour window before discovery matters, because the longer food spends above safe temperature, the greater the risk.
The HACCP plan failures compound that concern. A HACCP plan, which stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, is a written food safety blueprint that state regulators specifically approve for facilities doing complex processes like acidifying sushi rice. The whole point of the plan is that deviations from it, even small ones like using a metal container instead of a zip bag, or skipping the required shake of a pH meter, can shift the acidity of the rice outside the range that inhibits bacterial growth. Three separate deviations from the approved plan were found in a single visit at Sushi Maki Whole Food.
The lapsed HACCP verification record is a related problem. The plan requires a regional manager to review and sign off on the verification process weekly. The most recent signature on file during the March 4, 2026 visit was dated February 16, 2026, a gap of 16 days. That means the oversight mechanism built into the plan had not been exercised for more than two weeks before inspectors walked in.
The missing vomiting and diarrhea event procedures are a separate category of concern. These written protocols exist to prevent contaminated surfaces and food from sickening additional customers after a sick employee or shopper incident. Their absence does not mean an incident occurred, but it does mean staff had no documented guidance if one had.
The Longer Record
The March 2026 inspection was not the first time this location accumulated citations. State records show four prior FDACS inspections at this address going back to late 2022. The earliest on file, from November 4, 2022, was for operating without a valid food permit. A follow-up visit two weeks later, on November 17, 2022, turned up nine violations.
After that, the record improved considerably. An April 2024 inspection found zero violations, and a focused inspection in October 2025 also found zero violations. That two-year stretch of clean inspections makes the March 2026 findings more notable, not less, because they represent a reversal after a period of apparent compliance.
The backflow prevention device violation is the thread that connects the pattern. It appeared as a repeat citation in March 2026, which means it had been documented at a prior visit and not resolved in the time between inspections.
At the close of the March 4 inspection, the written procedures for vomiting and diarrhea events had still not been provided, and the backflow device at the produce wash sink remained in the same condition inspectors had flagged before.