We have stayed at the Country Inn for the past four years on a regular basis. It is quite cozy and the best motel in town (I haven't tried the Archer House). It has an unbeatable location near charming downtown Northfield, but if you're light sleeper you should know that the train goes right by the back of the hotel. The property is a quiet two-story building, but it's aging and needs to fix some management issues.

The rooms are spacious and have great wireless internet. The beds are a bit hard (many hotels now have softer mattresses), and the air conditioners could work better. But there are tons of cable channels and nice bathrooms. And the rooms are always very clean.

The breakfast has the usual Continental selection, plus scrambled eggs and sausage. It's not Perkins, but it's not awful either. There is a lobby fireplace area with comfy couches for reading. I've never used the pool, but it's usually noisy with kids running around, and once I stopped by and it looked a bit murky.

The biggest issue is that recently, the hotel seems to be run by high-school aged kids who can be rude and generally unhelpful. Once we came back and the front desk worker was in an obscene shouting match with her boyfriend. Another time the hotel overbooked and we had to drive an hour north to Bloomington to stay overnight. If the hotel could renovate the rooms a little bit and invest in some training, it would be perfect.

We were very pleased with this Country Inn, and have since stayed there several times. We always ask for the large suite at the far end of the main floor hallway, and find the accomodations to be satisfactory and comfortable.
It's also great that the property allows dogs, as a couple times we've stayed with one of ours.

We stayed here for five nights. Not as nice room, lobby or breakfast bar as at other Country Inns we have stayed at. There was no mattress pad on the beds and the maid did not replace coffee, shampoo or soap until we complained. They only give you one shampoo, no lotion, conditioner etc. The breakfast bar was out of orange juice, tea and creamer throughtout the weekend and they weren't replaced until the next day or in the case of the tea, not at all. It is close to downtown Northfield but in the middle of a road construction project when we stayed there in late August 2006. Ask for a room on the parking lot side as the other side is about 35 yards from the railroad tracks. The train ran approximately three times during the night. There is a nice indoor pool and spa and the front desk staff is very friendly, they seemed to be mostly college age students.
If we visit Northfield again we would stay at one of the other motels even though they are not within walking distance to downtown.

My daughter and I stayed at this property for one night.

This Country Inn appears to be relatively new. The lobby was small and basically still under construction. Our room seemed smaller and less nicely furnished than the room in the County Inn at Ames, IA where we had stayed the previous two nights. Our room and the public areas were very clean. We had excellent wireless internet access from our room. The breakfast area was small and the food selection was very limited, even for a property in this price range, with some cereals, drinks and miniature muffins. The staff was very friendly and tried very hard to be helpful and responsive to our requests.

Overall, it was a clean, pleasant and quiet place and we would probably stay there again if we were in the area.