Where can you get dinner in Elk on a Wednesday night? The village has a two-star MICHELIN restaurant, a small ocean-view dining room run by a chef and a sommelier, and a weekly-changing cafe in the old Queenie's building. None of them serves the public on a Wednesday.
Elk's restaurants all run on the same week. Harbor House Inn, Sibo at Elk Cove Inn and Maritime Cafe each close on Tuesday and Wednesday. On those days the Elk Store is the only place in the village selling food to anyone who walks in. Planning a meal in Elk depends more on the day of the week than on which restaurant you pick.
The week on one page
These hours come from each business's own website as of late October 2026.
| Day | Harbor House Inn | Sibo at Elk Cove Inn | Maritime Cafe | The Elk Store |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Lunch and dinner | Dinner, 6 to 7:30 p.m. | Closed | 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Tuesday | Closed | In-room dinner for inn guests only | Closed | 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Wednesday | Closed | In-room dinner for inn guests only | Closed | 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Thursday | Lunch and dinner | Dinner, 6 to 7:30 p.m. | Dinner, 5 to 8 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Friday | Lunch and dinner | Dinner, 6 to 7:30 p.m. | Dinner, 5 to 8 p.m. | Not posted |
| Saturday | Lunch and dinner | Dinner, 6 to 7:30 p.m. | Lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| Sunday | Lunch and dinner | Dinner, 6 to 7:30 p.m. | Lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., dinner 5 to 8 p.m. | 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
All four places are open Thursday through Sunday. Monday drops to three, because Maritime Cafe is closed. On Tuesday and Wednesday the store is the only one open to the public.
Three dining rooms where there used to be five
There were more places to eat in Elk until recently. Sacred Rock Inn, on the bluff in the old Greenwood Pier Inn and Griffin House buildings, had two restaurants: Greenwood Restaurant, a 22-seat fine-dining room, and Elk House, a more casual spot. The inn and both restaurants closed on June 1, 2025, one year after a decade of renovations was completed, according to the Press Democrat and North Bay Business Journal.
The Jackson Rancheria tribe bought the property in 2014. Mendocino Coast News reported that the tribe also owned Bridget Dolan's Pub, which served food while the inn was being renovated. When SFGate reported on the closure on June 9, 2025, a tribe spokesperson said no decisions had been made about the property. No reopening has been announced since. The inn's website still shows menus dated May 2025, but those menus are not current.
That leaves three restaurants in Elk, and all three close on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Small kitchens, fixed seatings
All three restaurants are small, and you can see it in how each one takes bookings.
At Harbor House Inn, executive chef Matthew Kammerer's restaurant kept its two MICHELIN stars in the 2026 California guide, announced June 24. Reservations are required. Lunch is seated at noon, 12:30 or 1 p.m., and the Full Experience dinner at 5:30, 6 or 6:45 p.m., Thursday through Monday. The inn added a $150 lunch in January 2026. That lunch lets you eat at Elk's best-known restaurant in daylight, when you can see the cove, and still get home before the drive along Highway 1 turns dark. Harbor House has not announced a winter closure.
Sibo at Elk Cove Inn is run by a husband-and-wife team. Chef Victor cooks and Melissa, the sommelier, runs the dining room. The restaurant's page describes Victor as "a one-man kitchen" and says many of the dishes take three to four hours to prepare. The house rules follow from that:
- The dining room is open to the public Thursday through Monday, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
- You order ahead through the reservation form, and orders are due by noon on the day you dine.
- The menu is set. The kitchen does not take substitutions, omissions or dietary changes, though the menu marks vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free dishes.
- A 20% gratuity is added to every check.
- The front desk is at 707-877-3321, option 2.
On Tuesday and Wednesday Sibo serves only in-room dinners to overnight guests, at 5:30 p.m. Much of the food comes from the inn's own grounds. The page lists eggs, cheese, yogurt, jams, honey and produce from the homestead, and says Victor forages for wild seafood and mushrooms.
The page also says the dining room "closed in January" and tells readers to stay posted for updated winter hours. It does not say which January. The Thursday-to-Monday schedule is on the page as of its June 2026 update, but winter hours may change, so call before booking a December or January dinner.
Maritime Cafe is at 6061 Highway 1, in the building that was Queenie's Roadhouse Cafe. Rodney Workman and Alexa Newman took it over in August 2024. The San Francisco Standard included it in a November 2024 roundup of Mendocino meals worth the trip. The menu is short, changes weekly and is built on local produce and seafood. Past dishes include eggplant-tomato soup, black cod toast and an albacore sandwich.
Maritime has the least regular schedule of the three. It serves dinner on Thursday and Friday and lunch only on Saturday, and Sunday is the one day it serves both lunch and dinner. Listings elsewhere show different hours, and at least one booking platform has shown a Saturday dinner slot. Treat the cafe's own site as the reference and check it the week you go. That site currently says the cafe is closed Saturday, October 31.
Tuesday and Wednesday belong to the Elk Store
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Elk Store is the only place in the village selling food to the public. The store's site lists hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, with the line "New—we're open Tuesdays."
The site doesn't say when the Tuesday hours started, but they matter more than any other schedule change in the village this season. Elk's restaurants close for two days in the middle of the week, and the store now covers both of them.
Dates through December
Elk's calendar has a few other dates through the end of the year:
- Saturday, October 31: Maritime Cafe is closed for service.
- Through November: The Greenwood State Beach visitor center is open 8 a.m. to noon and 12:30 to 4 p.m. on its March-through-November schedule. The beach itself is open daily from 6 a.m. until one hour after sunset.
- Saturday, November 7, 1 to 4 p.m.: The Greenwood Community Center calendar lists the John Ross Memorial.
- Saturday, December 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.: The Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair, on the same community calendar.
- December and January: Watch Sibo's page for the winter hours it has said are coming.
The community center's biggest event of the year has already happened. Great Day in Elk turned 50 on August 29, and the Mendocino Voice reported a parade with the Junior Lifeguards and Elk's fire trucks, music from MendoTaiko, and food stalls ranging from tamales to lemon chicken.
On a Thursday in November, all four places are open. On a Tuesday, only the Elk Store is.
Knowing which kitchens are open on which days is part of daily life in Elk, and it is the kind of detail Mendo Sotheby's International Realty pays attention to all along the south coast. If you're weighing a second home or a permanent move to Elk or a village nearby, we're glad to walk you through how the week actually runs there. Schedule a Consultation.
