Cooked?
El Mercado Latino - Grocery
- inspection score10 pts
- critical violations1
- last inspectedFebruary 17, 2026
- address1807 Howard Rd, Auburn 98002
Is El Mercado Latino - Grocery clean?
El Mercado Latino - Grocery is currently mid from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on February 17, 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 El Mercado Latino - Grocery?
These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on February 17, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.
- 🍴utensils stored sketchy4200 - Food-contact surfaces maintained, cleaned, sanitized
- 🧊cold food not cold enoughcritical2120 - Proper cold holding temperatures; between 42 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit (F) (6 to 7 degrees Celsius (C))
When was El Mercado Latino - Grocery last inspected?
El Mercado Latino - Grocery has 7 inspections on record going back to June 23, 2021, averaging 6 points.
| date | result | score |
|---|---|---|
| February 17, 2026 | no grade issued ⏳ | 10 pts |
| February 19, 2025 | no grade issued ⏳ | 5 pts |
| January 16, 2024 | no grade issued ⏳ | 0 pts |
| March 14, 2023 | no grade issued ⏳ | 10 pts |
| September 6, 2022 | no grade issued ⏳ | 10 pts |
| February 15, 2022 | no grade issued ⏳ | 10 pts |
| June 23, 2021 | no grade issued ⏳ | 0 pts |
El Mercado Latino - Grocery vs Auburn
Auburn runs 95% clean across 307 tracked restaurants — 292 clean, 14 mid, 1 cooked.
Against the 307 spots Cooked tracks in Auburn, this one comes out cleaner than 8% of them.
Other spots in Auburn
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 February 17, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.