Musashi’s is one of the most popular lunch restaurants for Lincoln students. They are known for their affordable and authentic sushi and Japanese cuisine. Musashi’s is located on the corner of 45th Street and Interlake Avenue, making it possibly the most accessible lunch option for students.
Recently, a previously hidden sign showing the food safety rating has been posted on the window.
The hidden sign displayed the lowest of 4 possible scores: needs to improve. This rating is far from ideal, adding on to Musashi’s 6 high risk violations in 2024 and years prior. They have also had multiple return inspections and were temporarily forced to close in 2024.
According to the King County Food Safety website, “Critical violations are food handling practices that, when not done properly, are most likely to lead to food-borne illnesses.”
In inspections done from 2022-2024, Musashi’s received a handful of critical violations. Some examples of these include lacking adequate handwashing for their employees, not having proper cold holding temperatures for their seafood, keeping raw foods too close to foods being served to customers, and not following proper procedure for preventing fungal and parasitic infections in raw fish.
Asked about his thoughts on Musashi’s food safety score, Jonah Parda- Jay (’26) said, “It’s weird that they tried to hide the sign. However I think we shouldn’t decide if it’s unsafe to eat there yet, we should give them a chance to redeem themselves and improve their score.”
On October 2nd of 2024, Musashi’s had a rodent infestation in the restaurant and was forced to shut down. Assuming that they don’t have any other forced closures or return inspections, no matter what they do they cannot bring up their rating from needs to improve until October of 2025.
Even though Musashi’s hasn’t been receiving good scores recently, it is nothing compared to the inspection results from 2014-2018. According to King County Health Safety Inspection site, from their opening in 2014, Musashi’s consistently performed poorly all the way through 2017.
In 2017, KIRO 7 News published an article highlighting Musashi’s worst inspection score ever: a whopping 80 points. An ideal score for restaurants is 0. If the restaurants receives above 35 points they must have a return inspection. But if the receive 90 or more, they are required to permanently close up.
Musashi’s barely slipped by: if they had received 10 or more points, they would have been forced to temporarily shut down. This shocking score resulted from observance of employees routinely failing to wash their hands, along with raw seafood stored at incorrect temperatures, and much more.
Some Lincoln students have seen these problems for themselves, with one student telling a story about how he saw a Musashi’s worker roll up sushi and then lick the rice off his hands.
In the years following their all-time low score, Musashi’s has displayed an observable pattern in having occasional health inspections that are way below standard. After getting scores like these, when the return inspection happened they would mysteriously have a perfect score of 0.
Having inconsistent observable patterns like the ones that Musashi’s has, makes predicting future trends very difficult. More recently, Musashi’s had been doing much better until one recent incident, occurring in October of 2024.
During this inspection, the worst possible thing happened. A rat infestation was found in the back of the restaurant, a huge hazard that could have jeopardized the health of many customers. This incident resulted in Musashi’s having to shut down for about a week before being permitted to reopen.
During this week of closure, Musashi’s put a lot of work into revamping the whole property. This included the removal of hazards found in the building and completely changing the layout of the restaurant. These attempts were done so customers could have an improved experience when visiting.
So, is it safe to eat at Musashi’s? Analyzing the restaurant inspection history it can seem like an unsafe idea. However, while Musashi’s has received several unfavorable inspections it has also received almost as many perfect inspections showing that their unsafe habits aren’t particularly consistent. It’s also important to note that most of these hazards only apply to their menu items with raw fish such as sushi.
It’s up to Lincoln students whether or not they will eat at Musashi’s, but it’s important to know the risks and hazards of food borne illnesses at any restaurant.
