Cooked?
Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant
- ratingRated Good
- inspection score25 pts
- critical violations2
- last inspectedJuly 16, 2026
- address1219 E Jefferson St, Seattle 98122
Is Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant clean?
Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant is currently Rated Good from Public Health — Seattle & King County, from an inspection on July 16, 2026. Inspectors wrote up 2 critical violations — the kind most directly linked to foodborne illness. On Cooked's ladder that reads clean 😇.
What did inspectors find at Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant?
These are the violations recorded at the most recent inspection on July 16, 2026, in plain English, with the city's own wording underneath.
- ♻️single-use stuff being reused4300 - Nonfood-contact surfaces maintained and clean
- 🛠️equipment grimy or busted4800 - Physical facilities properly installed, maintained, cleaned; unnecessary persons excluded from establishment
- ⚠️3200 - Insects, rodents, animals not present; entrance controlled3200 - Insects, rodents, animals not present; entrance controlled
- 🥩raw meat handled sketchycritical1400 - Raw meats below and away from ready-to-eat food; species separated
- ⚠️1000 - Food in good condition, safe and unadulterated; approved additivescritical1000 - Food in good condition, safe and unadulterated; approved additives
When was Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant last inspected?
Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant has 9 inspections on record going back to June 3, 2022, averaging 24 points.
| date | result | score |
|---|---|---|
| July 16, 2026 | Rated Good | 25 pts |
| October 22, 2025 | Rated Good | 12 pts |
| March 19, 2025 | Rated Good | 12 pts |
| September 27, 2024 | Rated Good | 18 pts |
| March 21, 2024 | Rated Good | 0 pts |
| March 11, 2024 | Rated Good | 43 pts |
| July 26, 2023 | Rated Good | 52 pts |
| December 30, 2022 | Rated Good | 30 pts |
| June 3, 2022 | Rated Good | 20 pts |
Zobel Ethiopian Restaurant vs Downtown
Downtown runs 91% clean across 1,707 tracked restaurants — 1,561 clean, 139 mid, 7 cooked.
Against the 1,707 spots Cooked tracks in Downtown, this one comes out cleaner than 2% of them.
Other spots in Downtown
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 July 16, 2026. Inspection results describe one moment in a kitchen's life, not a permanent verdict.