VALRICO, FL. A state inspector walked into Sushi Ushi on State Road 60 East on May 14, 2026, and left with a citation for food from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means inspectors could not confirm where the restaurant's ingredients, potentially including raw fish served to customers, actually came from.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The May 14 inspection produced 8 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate violations, for a total of 11 citations in a single visit. That is the highest single-inspection total recorded for this facility in the inspection history on file.
Two of those high-severity violations, taken together, describe a restaurant with no functioning system for keeping sick employees out of the kitchen. Inspectors cited the restaurant both for having no written employee health policy and for employees failing to report illness symptoms. Those are two separate failures in the same chain.
Inspectors also cited improper handwashing technique, a violation distinct from simply skipping handwashing. It means employees were going through the motion but not doing it correctly, leaving pathogens on their hands after the attempt.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food. That citation sits alongside the food contact surfaces violation, meaning surfaces that touch raw fish and other ingredients were not being properly cleaned or sanitized between uses.
The shellfish traceability citation is specific to sushi operations. Inspectors noted inadequate shell stock identification records, meaning the restaurant could not document where its shellfish came from or when it arrived. There was also no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods, which is required so that customers, particularly pregnant women, elderly diners, and people with compromised immune systems, can make an informed decision before ordering raw fish or shellfish.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of no employee health policy and no illness reporting is how multi-victim outbreaks begin. Norovirus, which causes projectile vomiting and severe diarrhea, spreads directly from infected food workers to customers through contaminated food. A written health policy is the mechanism that keeps a sick employee home. Without one, there is no documented protocol, and without illness reporting, there is no trigger to activate even an informal response.
The food from unapproved sources violation carries a different kind of risk. Ingredients that bypass USDA and FDA inspection processes have no verified safety record. At a sushi restaurant, where fish is served raw or minimally processed, that gap matters acutely. Listeria, Salmonella, and hepatitis A are among the pathogens that approved sourcing and inspection are designed to screen for.
The shellfish traceability failure compounds that risk. If a customer became ill after eating oysters or clams at Sushi Ushi, inspectors would have no records to trace the shellfish back to a harvest location or supplier. That traceability is the mechanism that allows health officials to issue recalls and stop an outbreak from spreading beyond one restaurant.
Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, combined with multi-use utensils that were not properly sanitized, create a direct cross-contamination pathway. At a sushi restaurant, a cutting board or knife that moves between raw proteins without proper sanitation can transfer bacteria directly onto food that will be served without further cooking.
The Longer Record
The May 2026 inspection was not a sudden deterioration. State records show Sushi Ushi has accumulated 205 total violations across 26 inspections on file.
High-severity violations have appeared in nearly every inspection in the available history. The restaurant logged 5 high-severity violations in both January 2024 and October 2023. It logged 4 high-severity violations in January 2025 and again in March 2023. The one clean inspection in the record, a May 2023 visit with zero violations at any level, stands as an outlier in an otherwise consistent pattern.
The May 2026 total of 8 high-severity violations is the steepest single-inspection count in the recent record, higher than any prior visit documented in the history provided. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed in its 26 inspections on record.
Still Open
State inspectors documented 8 high-severity violations at Sushi Ushi on May 14, 2026, including food from an unapproved or unknown source, no system for keeping sick employees away from food, and shellfish with no traceability records.
The restaurant remained open after the inspection.