• ratingRated Okay
• inspection score10 pts
• critical violations1
• last inspectedSeptember 10, 2026 →
• address400 9Th Ave N, Seattle 98109

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Is Sam's Tavern South Lake Union clean?

Sam's Tavern South Lake Union is currently Rated Okay from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on September 10, 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 Sam's Tavern South Lake Union?

These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on September 10, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.

• ❓food from an unapproved sourcecritical
  0600 - Adequate handwashing facilities

When was Sam's Tavern South Lake Union last inspected?

Sam's Tavern South Lake Union has 4 inspections on record going back to November 24, 2025, averaging 24 points.

Graded visits shown below · newest first · tap a date for the record

Sam's Tavern South Lake Union vs Downtown

Downtown runs 91% clean across 1,783 tracked restaurants — 1,615 clean, 160 mid, 8 cooked.

Against the 1,783 spots Cooked tracks in Downtown, this one comes out cleaner than 15% of them.

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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 September 10, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.

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