Cooked?
Cafe Rio Mexican Grill
- ratingRated Okay
- inspection score25 pts
- critical violations1
- last inspectedMay 19, 2026
- address12998 Se Kent Kangley Rd, Kent 98030
Is Cafe Rio Mexican Grill clean?
Cafe Rio Mexican Grill is currently Rated Okay from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on May 19, 2026. Inspectors wrote up 1 critical violation — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads mid 😬.
What did inspectors find at Cafe Rio Mexican Grill?
These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on May 19, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.
- ⚠️1710 - Proper hot holding temperatures; less than 130 degrees Fahrenheit (F) (54 degrees Celsius (C))critical1710 - Proper hot holding temperatures; less than 130 degrees Fahrenheit (F) (54 degrees Celsius (C))
When was Cafe Rio Mexican Grill last inspected?
Cafe Rio Mexican Grill has 7 inspections on record going back to August 19, 2021, averaging 17 points.
| date | result | score |
|---|---|---|
| May 19, 2026 | Rated Okay | 25 pts |
| March 4, 2025 | Rated Okay | 25 pts |
| October 18, 2024 | Rated Okay | 30 pts |
| January 31, 2024 | Rated Okay | 10 pts |
| December 5, 2022 | Rated Okay | 26 pts |
| April 25, 2022 | Rated Okay | 0 pts |
| August 19, 2021 | Rated Okay | 0 pts |
Cafe Rio Mexican Grill vs Covington
Covington runs 85% clean across 175 tracked restaurants — 148 clean, 25 mid, 2 cooked.
Against the 175 spots Cooked tracks in Covington, this one comes out cleaner than 8% of them.
Other spots in Covington
How Seattle grades restaurants
Public Health — Seattle & King County posts a word, not a letter: Excellent, Good, Okay, or Needs To Improve. The rating is deliberately not a snapshot — it averages the establishment’s recent routine inspections, so one bad day does not sink a consistently clean kitchen and one good day does not rescue a bad one. Inspectors score violations in red points for things that directly cause foodborne illness and blue points for everything else; around 45 red points triggers a mandatory re-inspection. Newly opened or recently changed spots can show as Not Rated until enough inspections accumulate.
Source: Public Health — Seattle & King County via King County Open Data. Cooked refreshes this data daily — this listing's most recent inspection is dated May 19, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.