I've been to the Stanford Inn several times, including my wedding night. It's heaven on a hillside. The atmosphere is warm and inviting from the rooms to the dining area. I love the food and look forward to the sea palm strudel weeks ahead of my arrival. For those who think the dining is too expensive and the service too slow, please consider IHOP instead, leaving the soul-replenishing dishes and relaxed atmosphere of the Stanford Inn to those who can appreciate it. After breakfast, there is nothing quite like a lovely stroll past the organic gardens to visit with the llamas. On stormy nights, there is no substitute for a tropical dip in the pool inside the solarium. The only thing I would like to see improved at the Stanford Inn is the wi-fi signal to the guest rooms, so that I could make phone calls over wi-fi on my Republic Wireless phone. There is almost no cellular coverage there, but a strong wi-fi signal would go a long way toward solving the problem for tech-savvy guests.

I have stayed at the Stanford Inn a few times over the last 15 years and have always enjoyed the experience. I look forward to staying there again when I am in Northern California. The rooms are warm and comfortable. We loved the organic gardens that are part of the property.

The location is lovely as are the gardens the rooms are adequate with a nice deck. The blankets which they tried to cover up with two sheets, were cheap and looked dirty. At check in they could not find our reservation for dinner and questioned if we had actually made one. They finally found it after we assured them it had been made well in advance. We arrived about 15 minutes late for our dinner and despite the dining room being half empty were told by a surly hostess that we would have to wait another hour before being seated as they were short staffed. The food was expensive and tasteless and the person at the neighboring table sent back her food basically untouched. We arrived for a peaceful breakfast in this pretty setting only to find new age music blasting at 8am! We were told the innkeeper does not allow the staff to turn it off. We subsequently found a lovely inn down the road which was less expensive, had pleasant staff and clean linens:) SKIP THE STANFORD

Stanford Inn & Raven Restaurant in Mendocino, CA My wife and I stayed at the Stanford Inn over the Christmas holiday 2013. They had a Christmas dinner with a fixed menu at a high price of $65 per person. The service at the restaurant Raven was bad as we had hard time getting our waitress's attention to come over to our table to talk about the problems with our food. They didn’t come over to see how our food was after serving us. The starter of Red and green ravioli stuffed with squash, served with a beurre blac sauce which sounded good, but lacking much flavor. The entrée we had was the Encrusted Tofu, which was very dry without much flavor. Our room Forest Executive had a broken chair next to our bed and very large air gaps from the porch door, which made our room cold at night. We had a very hard time booking the Inn during Christmas for two nights because they said the have a three night minimum, but on their website you can book the inn for two nights for the Christmas holiday, but you have to wait till later in the year to do so. They seem to make such a big deal about booking three nights only even though for two years we’ve been able to book two nights during the Christmas holiday. I didn't think that our stay could get even worse then our Christmas in 2013. After a complaint of broken future in our room, a Christmas dinner that was horrible and over priced and a mishandling of our reservations. We never received a discount to try them again or any type of refund for our stay. Even though the owner Ms. Joan Stanford did acknowledged that the handling of our reservation was mishandled. But called our feedback about the dinner "highly subjective". I guess the only feedback she is open to is, her own. Ms. Stanford seems to need to take a course in Hotel Management and Hospitality and how to respond to bad online reviews. She doesn't seem to know how to make a bad situation worse and keep her own ego out of it. In a area like Mendocino, CA with a suppressed economy and where more and more inn's are going out of business for just these type of badly handled customer relations. Beware future guess, the owner doesn't like honest feeback. I was willing to put our very bad experience behind us and try the inn again. So I booked a reservation on the Stanford Inn's website. I was trying to stay optimistic when I received following email response from the owner (Ms. Joan Stanford), in retaliation because of our last bad review. She really showed how much she appreciates feedback. Sent on March 17th. 2014. We are writing to tell you that we will not accept this reservation or any in the future and have voided all credit card information. Nothing was ever charged. We know that you were extremely unhappy the last time you stayed and know you will be happier staying somewhere else.

I just can't say enough great things about our stay at the Stanford Inn. It's like all the best bits of a small family run guest house and a luxury hotel rolled together in to one place with some added twists. They've really thought about what you want to enjoy your stay, done that really well and avoided wasting anything on extraneous frippery. There's a lovely open fire in your room and a balcony opening on to one of the most beautiful gardens I've seen for years, which is terraced down to a kitchen garden at the bottom of the hill, where they grow all the food for their restaurant. Then there's lots of lovely things to do all around you, canoeing on or walks along the beautiful river, bikes to ride and a wellness centre with fantastic masseurs. Perfection.