I do love my Florida man stories and how that state although lovely seems to have a tendency towards the wacky and weird. I do not fault the people of Florida and actually have some really great friends who live there that are, as far as I know, perfectly normal. The state does seem to be a bit cursed though because crazy things can be counted on to happen there.
I encourage you to enter your birthday on a websearch and include "florida man" in the search to find out the crazy things that have happened in Florida on your special day!
The Nikko Restaurant and Sushi Bar announced earlier this month that they will be shutting down after trace amounts of methamphetamines were found in the soy sauce available in the restaurant on tables as well as in sealed and unopened take away containers of the same sauce.
This incident follows an event at the same restaurant that left 7 people hospitalized back in June of 2023 and the restaurant temporarily closed while investigators attempted to find out what happened. Initially nothing turned up and the restaurant was allowed to reopen. I can't find information on what went down as far as that is concerned but i would imagine that when 7 people have to go to the hospital after eating there that their Yelp review score probably suffered a bit.
Nobody got hurt so I believe it is ok to laugh at the fact that it turns out it was meth.... because of course it was meth, it's Florida. It's always meth.
The restaurant, which was a small family-owned business claimed ignorance and has no idea how meth ended up in their soy sauce. I suppose I can sympathize with this and am not going to applaud the downfall of a small business but since it is happening anyway I can say that putting one of the world's most addictive chemicals in a sauce that is used by almost everyone that eats at that sort of establishment would be a pretty fantastic way to get people to come back.
I wonder how many people simply didn't know why they really loved the Nikko Restaurant, they just felt extremely compelled to go and eat there again and again.
The owners complied with all instruction from authorities but stated that the media attention and negative social media posts as well as negative reviews from hundreds of people suspected of never having eaten there made it financially impossible for them to remain open.
I guess we will never really know if anyone involved with Nikko actually did this intentionally, but the damage was done. I suppose that is one of the dangers of owning a restaurant, that you are going to have to face the music when you accidentally (or intentionally) poison your customers with amphetamines.
This isn't necessarily a dumb story. I found it really entertaining. It is just a bit ironic that anytime I find a Florida story that seems a bit out there, there is always meth involved.
