VALRICO, FL. A state inspector walked into Sushi Ushi on State Road 60 East on September 1 and found food coming from unapproved or unknown sources, a violation that means inspectors cannot trace where the raw fish and other ingredients on customers' plates actually came from.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The September 1 inspection produced six high-severity violations and one intermediate citation. That count places it among the more serious single-visit records the restaurant has accumulated, though not its worst.
Inspectors cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification and records. Sushi restaurants that serve raw shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are required to maintain harvest tags that allow health officials to trace a product back to its source if customers become ill. No adequate records were on hand.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food. The inspector also cited food contact surfaces, including the cutting boards and prep surfaces where raw fish is handled, as not properly cleaned or sanitized.
Employees were observed using improper hand and arm washing technique. That citation, paired with the food contact surface finding, creates a direct chain from unwashed hands to contaminated prep surfaces to the food placed in front of customers.
The inspector also found that required procedures for specialized processes were not being followed. At a sushi restaurant, that category covers the precise time-and-temperature protocols used when handling raw fish intended for raw consumption, processes that have no margin for improvisation.
What These Violations Mean
Food from unapproved or unknown sources is not a paperwork problem. When a restaurant cannot identify where its ingredients came from, health officials have no way to issue a recall or trace an outbreak back to a specific farm, distributor, or harvest batch. At a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is served directly to customers without a kill step like cooking, that gap in the supply chain is as serious as it gets.
The shellfish records violation compounds that risk. Shellfish are among the highest-risk raw foods because they filter-feed and can concentrate bacteria and viruses, including Vibrio and norovirus, from the water they grow in. Harvest tags exist precisely so that a sick customer's meal can be traced to a specific harvest location and date. Without those records, that tracing is impossible.
Improper handwashing technique is not the same as skipping handwashing entirely, but the result is similar. Pathogens including Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus survive on hands when the washing motion is incomplete or too brief, and they transfer directly to food during preparation. At Sushi Ushi, that risk was paired with food contact surfaces that inspectors found were not properly cleaned or sanitized, meaning the contamination pathway ran from hands to surfaces to raw fish served at the table.
The chemical storage violation introduces a separate and acute risk. Cleaning products and sanitizers stored near or above food, or without proper labeling, can contaminate ingredients through spills or mislabeling. In a kitchen already cited for multiple process failures, an improperly labeled chemical container is a compounding hazard.
The Longer Record
Sushi Ushi Inspection History, Selected Visits
State records show 27 inspections on file for Sushi Ushi, with 213 total violations accumulated across that history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
Every inspection since May 2023, the only visit in the recent record that produced zero violations, has resulted in high-severity citations. The May 2026 inspection was the worst single visit documented, with eight high-severity and three intermediate violations. The September 2026 inspection followed four months later with six more high-severity findings.
The violations are not random. Food sourcing, shellfish traceability, surface sanitation, and process compliance appear across multiple inspection cycles. These are not isolated bad days. They are categories the restaurant has been cited in repeatedly, across inspectors, across seasons, across years.
The restaurant has never triggered an emergency closure order.
Still Open
Florida's emergency closure authority is triggered when an inspector determines that conditions pose an immediate threat to public life, health, or safety. Six high-severity violations at a raw fish restaurant, including unknown food sourcing and improperly stored toxic chemicals, did not meet that threshold on September 1.
Sushi Ushi remained open for business after the inspection concluded.
