Red Onion Tavern

• last posted ratingRated Okay · May 6, 2026
• inspection score40 pts
• critical violations3
• last inspectedMay 19, 2026 →
• address4210 E Madison St, Seattle 98112

Is Red Onion Tavern clean?

Red Onion Tavern is currently listed as closed by Public Health — Seattle & King County, as of its inspection on May 19, 2026. That inspection scored 40 points and cited 3 critical violations. A closure means inspectors found conditions serious enough to stop service — it is not the same as a restaurant choosing to shut down, and the listing can change once the problems are fixed and re-inspected. The last rating the city posted here was Okay on May 6, 2026, before the closure.

What did inspectors find at Red Onion Tavern?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on May 19, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• 🧽surfaces not properly sanitized
  4100 - Warewashing facilities properly installed, maintained, used; sanitizer concentration; test strips available and used
• ⚠️4400 - Plumbing properly sized, installed, and maintained; proper backflow devices, indirect drains, no cross-connections
• 🦪shellfish with no paper trailcritical
  1100 - Proper disposition of returned, unsafe, or contaminated food; proper date marking procedures for food at high risk for Listeria
• ⚠️2600 - Compliance with valid permit; operating and risk control plans, and required written procedurescritical
• ❓food from an unapproved sourcecritical
  0600 - Adequate handwashing facilities

When was Red Onion Tavern last inspected?

Red Onion Tavern has 12 inspections on record going back to December 10, 2021, averaging 41 points.

Red Onion Tavern vs Capitol Hill

Capitol Hill runs 89% clean across 64 tracked restaurants — 56 clean, 6 mid, 1 cooked.

Against the 64 spots Cooked tracks in Capitol Hill, this one comes out cleaner than 0% of them.

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See every restaurant inspection in Capitol Hill →

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.

Read the Seattle ratings guide →

Inspection findings and available history come from the authority’s published records. Cooked checks daily; publication can lag behind an inspection. Read the date on each result and check the official source for newer information.

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.

check your own block 📸

Cooked covers 10 cities on official inspection data — see who's clean, mid, or cooked near you.