Cooked?
L J's Cafe
- ratingRated Okay
- inspection score15 pts
- critical violations2
- last inspectedFebruary 11, 2026
- address11845 Ne 85Th St, Kirkland 98033
Is L J's Cafe clean?
L J's Cafe is currently Rated Okay from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on February 11, 2026. Inspectors wrote up 2 critical violations — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads mid 😬.
What did inspectors find at L J's Cafe?
These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on February 11, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.
- 🧊cold food not cold enoughcritical2120 - Proper cold holding temperatures; between 42 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit (F) (6 to 7 degrees Celsius (C))
- ❓food from an unapproved sourcecritical0600 - Adequate handwashing facilities
When was L J's Cafe last inspected?
L J's Cafe has 6 inspections on record going back to August 25, 2021, averaging 7 points.
| date | result | score |
|---|---|---|
| February 11, 2026 | Rated Okay | 15 pts |
| July 14, 2025 | Rated Okay | 0 pts |
| March 15, 2024 | Rated Okay | 15 pts |
| March 23, 2023 | Rated Okay | 10 pts |
| March 7, 2022 | Rated Okay | 0 pts |
| August 25, 2021 | Rated Okay | 0 pts |
L J's Cafe vs Kirkland
Kirkland runs 96% clean across 337 tracked restaurants — 322 clean, 15 mid, 0 cooked.
Against the 337 spots Cooked tracks in Kirkland, this one comes out cleaner than 5% of them.
Other spots in Kirkland
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 11, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.