Diners describe a live rat on a sushi conveyor
A customer at Sushiro's Chuhe Hanjie branch in Wuhan said she saw a large live rat run along a conveyor carrying food at about 2:50 p.m. on October 24. She said food was still being placed on the belt when she left after 4 p.m., before the restaurant announced a temporary closure after 5 p.m.
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The complaint concerns the part of a conveyor sushi restaurant where dishes travel past customers. Several diners described seeing the animal, and some said it moved too quickly for them to photograph it.
By the morning of October 26, the branch appeared as temporarily closed on an online platform. At 2 p.m. that day, its listing showed normal operations. A restaurant contact subsequently said the whole premises had been disinfected.
The Wuhan complaints come alongside documented hygiene violations at another Sushiro branch, in Hangzhou, where inspectors found food residue on dishes during two visits. That restaurant received a warning, an order to correct its practices, confiscation of 28,446.33 yuan in illegal income and a fine of 38,000 yuan.
The year of the Wuhan incident was not specified. The detailed Hangzhou inspection and penalty records were dated 2026, so the two cases cannot be placed in a single confirmed sequence. No regulatory finding on the Wuhan rat complaint, or official clearance for reopening, was identified.
What happened between the sighting and closure?
The Wuhan customer, identified by her surname Chen, said she entered the restaurant at about 2:30 p.m. on October 24. Roughly 20 minutes later, she saw the rat pass directly in front of her. Customers on both sides of the counter reacted and called attention to it.
Chen said employees told her that all ingredients in the kitchen had immediately been discarded. She questioned why the restaurant had not stopped serving and disinfected the premises once the animal appeared in the dining area.
Employees responded that the restaurant carried out disinfection every week and could not ask all customers to leave immediately, according to Chen's account. She said food continued to be placed on the conveyor until after 4 p.m., when she departed.
The restaurant waived her bill and gave her a portion of frozen mango after she raised the matter with the manager. A staff member described the rat as coming from outside. That explanation left its route into the food service area unidentified.
- October 24, about 2:30 p.m.: Chen said she arrived at the Wuhan branch.
- October 24, about 2:50 p.m.: She said she saw the rat on the conveyor.
- October 24, after 4 p.m.: She said food was still being placed on the belt when she left.
- October 24, after 5 p.m.: The branch announced a temporary closure.
- October 26: An online listing changed from temporarily closed in the morning to operating normally by 2 p.m.
What the restaurant said it had cleaned
A contact reached through the Wuhan branch's publicly listed details said the entire restaurant had been disinfected. Earlier staff responses focused on discarding kitchen ingredients and the branch's weekly cleaning schedule.
Chen's concern was more specific: the animal had appeared where food was passing customers, while the immediate response described to her concerned ingredients in the kitchen. Her account therefore puts the conveyor, the dining area and the timing of the closure at the centre of the complaint.
A conveyor connects food preparation with the customer seating area. Cleaning after an animal enters that space involves the surfaces it may have touched as well as decisions about food exposed along its route. The practical issue for diners was what happened to dishes already circulating while service continued.
The waived bill and mango addressed Chen's purchase. The restaurant's statement about disinfection addressed the premises. Customers seeking to understand the response need both the timing of the cleaning and the handling of food during the interval she described.
Hangzhou inspectors found residue twice
The Hangzhou case provides detailed inspection figures. Administrative penalty decision Hang Xiao Shi Jian Chu Fa [2026] No. 568 concerned Beijing Sushiro Catering Co.'s First Xiaoshan Branch, which operates the restaurant at Xiaoshan MixC.
On January 5, 2026, Xiaoshan market regulators inspected 10 aluminium trays in the sashimi area. All 10 had substantial water marks and food residue. Inspectors also checked 20 plates in the food dispatch area and found food residue on 10.
A return inspection on February 5 found rice or other residue on six of 10 items checked. In simple terms, half of the 20 dispatch plates examined in January were dirty, and six out of 10 items examined during the February visit still had visible residue.
The decision also recorded that the branch had made and sold mango mille crepe cake, strawberry mille crepe cake and cheesecake without the required permission for that category of cold prepared pastry. Inspectors identified disorder in the management of a designated kitchen preparation room as well.
The penalty, imposed on April 27, combined a 38,000 yuan fine with confiscation of 28,446.33 yuan in illegal income, a total of 66,446.33 yuan. Regulators also issued a warning and ordered corrections. Confiscation takes away income authorities classify as illegally obtained; the fine is an additional financial penalty.
A May visit found further complaints
A visit to the Xiaoshan MixC restaurant on May 21, 2026, found that the three desserts identified in the penalty decision had been removed from the ordering menu. Checks of cups and plates during the same visit produced further hygiene complaints.
Four of five cups examined at a table reportedly felt greasy inside, and wiping them with restaurant tissues left visible oil marks. A small dish for condiments also showed signs of incomplete cleaning. Plates arriving with food had grease on their outer surfaces or dried sauce around their edges.
An unidentified object with what appeared to be antennae was found attached to the base of a tray beneath a bowl of onsen egg. The manager suggested it could be seaweed. The plates and tray had been collected by kitchen staff before they could be retained for examination.
The manager said the restaurant had completed its corrections after the penalty and was operating according to its procedures. The manager attributed grease on plate exteriors to gloves used by kitchen employees handling oily dishes and acknowledged that some dishes might emerge from the dishwasher with residue.
Asked about a further check after machine washing, the manager said kitchen staff were present. The manager rejected the suggestion that cup interiors were greasy and declined a request to inspect tableware at another randomly selected seat.
What food safety law requires
Liu Xiaoyu, a practising lawyer at Jiangsu Lutai Law Firm, said failing to wash tableware properly violated Article 33, paragraph 1, item 5 of China's Food Safety Law. That provision requires cleaning and disinfection of tableware and utensils and cleaning of containers used for food eaten directly.
The requirement concerns an everyday step between one customer and the next: removing leftover food and properly treating utensils before they return to service. A dishwasher is part of that process, while checks on the finished dishes help identify items that need washing again.
Liu said repeated hygiene violations could bring heavier penalties and measures such as regulatory meetings with operators and public warnings. She also advised customers who find dirty dishes or foreign objects to photograph or film the problem, keep receipts and payment records, and raise it with the restaurant.
If the dispute remains unresolved, customers can submit the evidence to market supervision authorities, she said. Keeping the object or dish available for examination can also help resolve disagreements such as the one over the material attached to the Hangzhou tray.
Other branches face scrutiny
Sushiro belongs to Japan's listed FOOD & LIFE COMPANIES. It opened its first mainland Chinese restaurant in Guangzhou in September 2021 and subsequently expanded to more than 20 cities. Its conveyor service and pricing have drawn substantial queues at some locations, including in Hangzhou.
Earlier penalties involved Beijing branches. In June 2025, a Xicheng district restaurant was fined 3,000 yuan after an insect was found in ramen. In October 2025, a second Haidian district branch received a 1,000 yuan fine for a Food Safety Law violation.
In March 2026, a customer complained that tuna sashimi at the Mentougou Chang'an Tianjie branch appeared to contain parasite eggs. Market regulators opened an investigation. Customers have also described diarrhoea, vomiting and acute intestinal illness after meals at Sushiro restaurants; those accounts require medical and regulatory examination to determine their cause.
After receiving the findings from the May 21 Hangzhou visit, market supervision authorities said they had arranged inspections of all branches within their respective jurisdictions. The checks would focus on tableware hygiene and whether food preparation followed required procedures.
The concrete test for those inspections is whether clean dishes and compliant preparation become routine. Wuhan's complaint centres on an animal entering the serving area and the response before closure. Hangzhou's records show a different operational problem: residue remaining on dishes across repeated inspections, followed by further complaints after the restaurant said corrections were complete.
Key Points
- A Wuhan diner said she saw a live rat on Sushiro's Chuhe Hanjie conveyor at about 2:50 p.m. on October 24.
- She said food remained on the conveyor after 4 p.m.; the branch announced a temporary closure after 5 p.m.
- The Wuhan branch later said the whole restaurant had been disinfected.
- Hangzhou inspectors found food residue during visits in January and February 2026.
- The Hangzhou branch received a 38,000 yuan fine and lost 28,446.33 yuan in illegal income.
- Further tableware complaints followed in May, and regulators announced checks focused on hygiene and food preparation.
