Here are the 5 best restaurants in Moses Lake, Washington

I've lived in Moses Lake for awhile, and its definitely not a tourist town, but if you ever find yourself here, these are the five best places to eat, based on my biased and uncultured opinion

Spencer Humpherys

8/8/20255 min read

To be clear, I am the least qualified person to be talking about this. I know nothing about fine food, nor could I afford it even if I did. I eat at McDonald's more than I care to admit, and my particular taste in food was heavily influenced by the copious amounts of mac and cheese, PB & J sandwiches, and Safeway rotisserie chickens my family ate as kids. So take this ranking as you will, I am not a food critic nor am I paid for this, so you can at least count on this as being an unbiased opinion, unlike what you might find on some other ranking site.

1-J's Teriyaki

This is absolutely the best food in town, hands down. The chicken is cooked to perfection, and the rice is great. But the crown jewel is the teriyaki sauce. Jay, the owner supposedly has a secret recipe that they make in house. Everyone knows the Mr Ping's cliché in Kung Fu Panda about how "there is no secret ingredient."

Again, due to my unsophisticated palate, I don't know whether that is true or not, but you should probably trust Mr. Ping. But, the sauce is pretty freaking amazing, I've never had anything like it, at least not here in Moses Lake. Definitely give it a shot if you're here in town. My old boss lived in California, but he would come in every few months to do a market visit. When I started he brought me out to lunch, and asked where we should I go, and I recommended J's. After the first visit, he was hooked, and from that time on whenever he was in market he would bring the sales team to eat lunch there.

J's is also really reasonably priced, and centrally located at the main intersection in town of Broadway and Stratford, right on the corner. Overall I would give them a 9 out of 10. No, you don't get an explanation of what my criteria is, this is a vibe rating.

2-Los Cocos Grill

Something you should know about Moses Lake is that there are an absolute truckload of Mexican restaurants, several of which are more fancy, and have more of a sit-down-and-eat-with-the-family type of vibe (again this is a vibes ranking). An example of this is El Rodeo, another local favorite that would probably have a claim to a spot on this list if it weren't made by me. But I've never been a huge fan, and I have always loved the food at Los Cocos, which is more of a grab-and-go type of spot, or maybe a casual lunch date spot.

But the food is great. I typically get tacos or some kind of chicken with a side of beans and rice, with an absolutely massive order of horchata. The horchata is definitely the star of the show here, and it is always really, really good.

Funnily enough, almost all of the restaurants I list here are on the same street, with the exception of the next restaurant. But Los Cocos is no different, and its hard to miss. It's on Broadway, just down the street from J's, and it is a large square building, painted a deep red, right in front of a large laundromat, which is painted deep blue, undoubtedly owned by the same folks. If you like Mexican food, give it a shot. 7.5/10

3-Rock Top Burgers and Brew

Admittedly I don't drink, so I might be missing out on half what the name of this place is supposed to offer. However, I do really like the food I have had at Rock Top. The bottomless fries are a really good, and some of their deserts are amazing, at least by the standards of Moses Lake. Their entrees are alright, they seem to kind of be your generic overpriced burgers with cool names and too much on them, to the point where you have to peel most of it off, and the bun is often too wimpy to handle the burger. They are really good however, and they are probably the best burger in town in my opinion.

This place is owned by the same folks who own Michael's Bistro and Michael's on the Lake, so this family has quite the monopoly on fine dining here in town. I am sure that the two Michaels would be most people's number one and number two restaurants here in town, but Rock Top is my favorite of the three.

It is, as I mentioned before, the most expensive place on this list, as are the two Michaels. I took my wife and sister-in-law there once and spent well over one hundred dollars for our meals. This is also the only place not on Broadway, it's around the corner up on Stratford. This is probably the best place on the list to take a fancy date or work party, and probably the most conventionally nice. But I am such a unique edgy nonconformist I am going to put them at number three on the list. 7.35/10. That's right. I'm so edgy that I'm using nontraditional numbers in my ranking. You though I was going to go in increments of .5? Think again, this is my blog I do what I want.

4-Crisp Salad Co

Another restaurant monopoly, Crisp is owned by Jay, the same guy who owns J's Teriyaki. It is just down the street a few , on, yet again, Broadway.

This is kind of the hippie granola place in town. It is a salad place after all and I am not a big veggie guy, surprise surprise. The other four places on this list are all on here primarily for their meat dishes. So Crisp is an outlier in that respect. But, I am a meat-eating dude, just call me Steven Rinella. So I found a way to work meat into my salad.

Or at least my wife did. She used to work there, and she often took home food after her shifts. She was able to concoct a really great southwest style chicken lettuce corn and black bean salad with croissants, that I very much enjoy. Crisp's bread is also extremely well done, and comes as a side. Definitely get the bread. 6.5/10

5-Woody's Drive In

This is a great little hole-in-the-wall burger place with great shakes, and its ironically right next to two gyms. As the name says, it's just a drive through operation, and it's been there for years. Great food, a little expensive, and on site dining is limited to a couple picnic tables out front right next to noisy Broadway (again).

They are also pretty darn expensive, but I guess that is the way of things when you are running a tiny restaurant in a small town. You have bills to pay, overhead to cover, and payroll to make. Not to mention that groceries are ridiculously expensive nowadays.

I'll stop ranting, they aren't that expensive, and the food is definitely great. 5.5/10

So that's it! Those are my favorite place to eat in Moses Lake, Washington. Agree with me or not, this is just my biased opinion! Definitely let me know what your favorite spot is! Hit me up @coach_spencerh on X.