This place gets two stars ONLY because they grow the best mandarins in the region. However, DO NOT TRUST THEM TO SHIP MANDARINS! They will blow you off and lie to you, to your face, about the status of your order. They make promises to ship and don't do it, then give you false excuses and promises that they still won't keep.
Here are the specifics, in case you are interested: On Fri 12/6/19, wife and I drove to their orchard and purchased two ten-pound bags of mandarins, with the intention shipping one to Los Angeles and one to Chicago. They offered to ship them for the same price as the post office, so we paid them to do so. At the time we purchased the bags, their shop had more than two dozen ready-to-go bags. Nevertheless, we were told that they would be shipping out during the "week of 12/15" (they weren't). We figured that the mandarins would still arrive before Christmas. They also promised to send us an email with the USPS tracking numbers (they didn't). I should note that we live only about 25 miles from the orchard. After two weeks, we drove back to the orchard again to inquire about the status of the shipment, and we were told that they were not able to pick any mandarins because of "six consecutive days of rain" (in fact, there were only two separate days of rain in the area during the two weeks since we purchased the mandarins). They promised to send the shipment out on Monday 12/23 but that the mandarins would not arrive before Christmas. We said fine, okay, just please send them out asap. Well, the shipments finally arrived today 12/30. They weren't sent out until two days after Christmas (12/27).
For a $60 purchase on 12/6 (when they had ample supply on hand) to take 24 DAYS to finally arrive is beyond unacceptable. USPS did their job, it took them only three days after they received the mandarins to get them to their destinations. Maybe the operators don't care about their customers. Or maybe they figure that their customers wouldn't take the time to follow the status of the order or fact check their multiple dishonest statements and promises.
My advice to anyone reading this far is this: under no circumstances should you depend on Magnolia Hill Orchards to ship your purchase. Take the extra ten minutes to swing by the local post office in Loomis or Penryn. read more