Cooked?
El Taco Loco
- ratingRated Excellent
- inspection score5 pts
- critical violations1
- last inspectedMarch 25, 2026
- address2840 Nw Market St, Seattle 98107
Is El Taco Loco clean?
El Taco Loco is currently Rated Excellent from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on March 25, 2026. Inspectors wrote up 1 critical violation — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads clean 😇.
What did inspectors find at El Taco Loco?
These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on March 25, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.
- ⚠️0100 - PIC present, demonstrates knowledge and performs duties to maintain AMC; certified manager on staff unless exemptcritical0100 - PIC present, demonstrates knowledge and performs duties to maintain AMC; certified manager on staff unless exempt
When was El Taco Loco last inspected?
El Taco Loco has 5 inspections on record going back to June 18, 2024, averaging 3 points.
| date | result | score |
|---|---|---|
| March 25, 2026 | Rated Excellent | 5 pts |
| September 29, 2025 | Rated Excellent | 5 pts |
| May 19, 2025 | Rated Excellent | 5 pts |
| December 20, 2024 | Rated Excellent | 0 pts |
| June 18, 2024 | Rated Excellent | 0 pts |
El Taco Loco vs Ballard
Ballard runs 95% clean across 353 tracked restaurants — 335 clean, 18 mid, 0 cooked.
Against the 353 spots Cooked tracks in Ballard, this one comes out cleaner than 24% of them.
Other spots in Ballard
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 March 25, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.