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Red Onion Tavern
- ratingRated Okay
- inspection score60 pts
- critical violations5
- last inspectedMay 6, 2026
- address4210 E Madison St, Seattle 98112
Is Red Onion Tavern clean?
Red Onion Tavern is currently Rated Okay from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on May 6, 2026. Inspectors wrote up 5 critical violations — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads mid 😬.
What did inspectors find at Red Onion Tavern?
These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on May 6, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.
- 🧽surfaces not properly sanitized4100 - Warewashing facilities properly installed, maintained, used; sanitizer concentration; test strips available and used
- 🛠️equipment grimy or busted4800 - Physical facilities properly installed, maintained, cleaned; unnecessary persons excluded from establishment
- ⚠️4700 - Garbage, refuse properly disposed; facilities maintained4700 - Garbage, refuse properly disposed; facilities maintained
- 🍴utensils stored sketchy4200 - Food-contact surfaces maintained, cleaned, sanitized
- ⚠️4400 - Plumbing properly sized, installed, and maintained; proper backflow devices, indirect drains, no cross-connections4400 - Plumbing properly sized, installed, and maintained; proper backflow devices, indirect drains, no cross-connections
- ⚠️2600 - Compliance with valid permit; operating and risk control plans, and required written procedurescritical2600 - Compliance with valid permit; operating and risk control plans, and required written procedures
- ❓food from an unapproved sourcecritical0600 - Adequate handwashing facilities
- ⚠️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
- 🦪shellfish with no paper trailcritical1100 - Proper disposition of returned, unsafe, or contaminated food; proper date marking procedures for food at high risk for Listeria
- 📋food worker cards missingcritical0200 - Food Worker Cards current for all food workers; new food workers trained
When was Red Onion Tavern last inspected?
Red Onion Tavern has 12 inspections on record going back to December 10, 2021, averaging 41 points.
| date | result | score |
|---|---|---|
| May 19, 2026 | closed by the city | 40 pts |
| May 6, 2026 | Rated Okay | 60 pts |
| April 22, 2026 | Rated Okay | 75 pts |
| June 5, 2025 | Rated Okay | 27 pts |
| March 11, 2025 | Rated Okay | 35 pts |
| October 24, 2024 | Rated Okay | 35 pts |
| October 1, 2024 | Rated Okay | 35 pts |
| September 17, 2024 | Rated Okay | 61 pts |
| February 12, 2024 | Rated Okay | 46 pts |
| August 23, 2023 | Rated Okay | 23 pts |
| July 20, 2022 | Rated Okay | 38 pts |
| December 10, 2021 | Rated Okay | 15 pts |
Red Onion Tavern vs Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill runs 92% clean across 62 tracked restaurants — 57 clean, 5 mid, 0 cooked.
Against the 62 spots Cooked tracks in Capitol Hill, this one comes out cleaner than 0% of them.
Other spots 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.
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 6, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.