Mission Inn in downtown Riverside.

[Hillbillies]

[ForestGal]

[Hillbillies]

[Nolena]

I lived there when it was an actual hotel, before it was fixed up.
That place has a heck of a history!

[ForestGal]

[WWMtnGal]

We love the Mission Inn, we make a point of going there every year at Christmas time to have dinner at the Inn.  It is always decorated so beautifully and the food has always been good.  We have never stayed there but for a special evening, that is a wonderful place to visit.

[kawasaki_girl]

One of the restraunts in the Mission Inn has the most wonderful buffet, a Prime Rib buffet.. on Saturdays only.... It is exquisite.  Now I'm hungry!

[Surfer_Dude]

[The Usle Family]

The Mission Inn was closed in May 1985 for new rennovations and at the end of 1992.  I worked as an in house security guard there from 1982 to 1985.

When I worked there, the Inn had 2 bars, 2 restraunts and half of the Inn was apartments and the other half was a hotel with many rooms in the restoration process.  Plus there were many business's in the Rotunda and the mall.

The amount of art and history at theat place is unbelievable.  A lot of people have seen pictures of a painting of Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill.  The original is in one of the many museums.  The painting stands over 20 feet tall.

There are 2 chapels, used for weddings.  Both have gold (gold leaf embedded in to a light wood) alters and the small chapel has a gold ceiling and a Tiffinay window to boot.

When I started they were having a lot of external theft form the hotel.  So they had the security department looking and finding all possible access points to the hotel.  So we got to do alot of exploring of the catacombs and tunnels in downtown Riverside.  When I worked there a good portion of the tunnels went to other places.  For example the inn had 2 that went to the old city hall across the street from the inn.  Plus a couple more that went in the other direction under 6th street to the Mission Inn Annex.  The Annex had a room in the basement that had thousands of individual tiles on the walls of a room, the tiles were duplicates to others used through out the entire Inn.

[Nolena]

I remember in a number of areas the building had to be jacked up to remake the foundation. That was a long process.

[mgomerymom]

I can't find the other post, regarding the Riverside shopping, lights, Mission, FOOD!, etc......Thanks Gary for originally bringing all this up. I Got to Riverside Saturday morning around 7:30am, had breakfast, went shoppingin old town Riverside....lunch at Anchos, did you know thier margaritas and tortillas, I could live on....mmmmm, more shopping and the new theater at the Galleria was really nice as well, but why is it upstairs? Riverside was very crowded on Saturday, but I had the time of my life...some of those quaint little stores are awesome, wish we had some of those here in WW......the people were so incredibly friendly...even at the Walmart I went to....I was the minority, but stayed, those hispanics were so nice to me, maybe to make me feel welcome since we were the only three while folk in the place!

Thanks again!!!

[Jack]

The Mission Inn is great. The food is not the best I have had, but the atmosphere is incredible. Great photos!

[Tomas]

Riverside was very crowded on Saturday, but I had the time of my life...some of those quaint little stores are awesome, wish we had some of those here in WW......the people were so incredibly friendly...even at the Walmart I went to....I was the minority, but stayed, those hispanics were so nice to me, maybe to make me feel welcome since we were the only three while folk in the place!

Thanks again!!!

  Yeah it's amazing... even us "Hispanics" could be polite to people and have manners. Who could've guessed?    We're not all gangbangers who hate gringos?  Amazing

[mgomerymom]

I never doubted that Tomas, but what amazed me is that they were "nicer" to me than people of my own race, other places!

[Hillbillies]

From Mission Inn stories, to race relation stories!

You get it all on this thread!

[Tomas]

I never doubted that Tomas, but what amazed me is that they were "nicer" to me than people of my own race, other places!

That is the problem with typed word... Sometimes things just come out wrong.

From Mission Inn stories, to race relation stories!

You get it all on this thread!

LOL that's good stuff 

[Surfer_Dude]

The Taft chair....In the Mission Inn.
This is a picture of my brother who is over 6 feet tall.  This chair was especially created for "econo-sized' William Howard Taft.  It is said Taft was offended by its special creation and never sat in it.

[Leftfield]

It would have been in the 80's - I don't remember what year they closed.  The really neat thing about that dinner theater was that the actors were also our waiters/waitresses, so after they served dinner, they did the first act of the play.  Then during intermission, they would serve dessert and collect the money.  It was cool to be able to talk to them after seeing them perform.  I wish they would bring that back!

(Four years later) - Check out http://gourmetdetective.com/
They are right next door to the Mission Inn.