MERRITT ISLAND, FL. Back in April 2026, a state inspector walked into Wabi Sabi at 455 N Courtney Pkwy and found food sourced from unapproved or unknown suppliers, meaning some of what was being served to customers that day had never passed through a USDA or FDA inspection checkpoint.
That single violation stood alongside seven other high-severity citations from the same April 9 visit. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The unapproved food sourcing violation is particularly significant at a sushi restaurant, where raw fish is a menu staple. Food sourced outside licensed and inspected channels carries no paper trail. If a customer became sick, there would be no way to trace the product back through the supply chain.
The inspector also cited the kitchen for food not cooked to required minimum temperatures. At a Japanese restaurant that serves both raw and cooked items, undercooked food represents a direct salmonella and pathogen exposure risk for anyone who ordered a hot dish expecting it had been fully cooked through.
No consumer advisory was posted for raw or undercooked foods, meaning customers with compromised immune systems, elderly diners, pregnant women, and children had no warning that some items on the menu carried elevated risk.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. Cleaning agents and other hazardous materials stored near food or without proper labels can contaminate food directly, or be mistaken for food-safe products by staff.
The person in charge was either not present or not performing supervisory duties. That citation sat at the top of the list for a reason: without active managerial oversight, the other nine violations become easier to understand.
What These Violations Mean
The food-from-unapproved-sources violation does not mean the food was definitively contaminated. It means there is no way to know. Licensed food suppliers are subject to regular federal and state inspections. Unapproved sources are not. If anyone who ate at Wabi Sabi in April became ill, investigators would have nowhere to start.
The illness-reporting failure compounds that risk. When employees are not required to report symptoms of illness, sick workers continue handling food. Norovirus, the most common cause of food-related outbreaks in the United States, spreads person-to-person through exactly this route. A restaurant where management is absent and illness reporting is not enforced is a restaurant where an outbreak can start quietly and spread before anyone notices.
Inadequate handwashing facilities mean that even a worker who wanted to follow protocol could not do so properly. Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, such as cutting boards and prep counters, then transfer whatever bacteria are present from one dish to the next.
The cooling equipment violation rounds out the picture. Cold-holding failures allow food to drift into the temperature range where bacteria multiply rapidly, between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit. Combined with undercooked food and uninspected sourcing, the April 9 inspection documented a kitchen where multiple simultaneous failure points had converged.
The Longer Record
The April 9 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show Wabi Sabi has accumulated 328 total violations across 29 inspections on record, a figure that averages out to more than 11 violations per visit.
The pattern in recent years is consistent. In January 2024, the inspector cited 8 high-severity and 1 intermediate violation, an identical high-severity count to the April 2026 visit. In September 2024, 6 high-severity violations were documented. Two months later, in December 2025, the restaurant drew 7 high-severity and 6 intermediate violations on December 10, followed by another 2 high and 4 intermediate just two days later on December 12.
The July 2023 inspection found 6 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The April 2025 inspection found 4 high-severity and 2 intermediate. There is no inspection in the recent record where the restaurant sailed through cleanly, with the exception of a September 2024 follow-up and the April 13, 2026 re-inspection, four days after the worst visit, which showed zero violations in either category.
Despite this record, Wabi Sabi has never been issued an emergency closure order in any of the 29 inspections on file.
Still Open
The April 13 re-inspection confirmed that the violations cited on April 9 had been corrected. The state considers that a satisfactory resolution.
What the record does not resolve is the frequency. Eight high-severity violations in one visit, zero four days later, then the same categories reappearing inspection after inspection across three years, is a cycle the records document in detail.
On April 9, 2026, a customer ordering raw fish at Wabi Sabi had no way of knowing the kitchen had food from an uninspected source, no consumer advisory on the menu, and no manager on the floor. The restaurant remained open through the dinner service.