It says it right there at the bottom of every page on this website, in capital letters: The Pillsbury Club is a private, members-only club. Reservations are required in advance. Which is a sentence that stops a lot of people from going any further — because it sounds like a place you have to be invited to, or know somebody at, or apply to join.

So here is the plain answer. You do not need to arrive holding a membership card. You need a reservation.

What “private” actually means here

The Club is not a bar you can wander into off East 22nd Street. Our club policies put it this way: the Pillsbury Club is open exclusively to guests with a valid ticket for a tour, event or experience taking place on the day of their visit, and admission is limited to ticketed guests. You may be asked to show proof of your reservation when you arrive.

That is the whole gate. It is not a waiting list or a sponsorship or an annual fee — it is a controlled door. The reason for it is simple: this is a 1916 mansion with genuine centuries-old English interiors in it, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974, and the experience only works if the number of people inside on any given evening is a number somebody chose on purpose.

If the mechanics of booking are what you are after, we answered those separately in do you need a reservation to visit the Pillsbury Club. This piece is about who is allowed to make one. The answer is: you are.

Every way through the door

A reservation for any one of these makes you a guest of the Club for the day. From our experiences and tours page:

• Psychic Readings — an evening of messages, insight and spiritual connection.
• Paranormal Ghost Hunt — an investigation inside the mansion itself.
• The Gilded Age Mansion Tour — Minneapolis mansions from the outside, and from the inside.
• The Candlelight Ghost Tour — the city’s most haunted sites, aboard a trolley that is itself said to be haunted.
• The True Crime Tour — riders play the jury on some of the grimmest cases in the city’s past.
• The Murder Mystery — an interactive trolley experience built for groups and parties.
• The Sightseeing Trolley Tour — the landmarks, neighbourhoods and scenic highlights, guided.
• Thunder Down Under — an adults-only night of live entertainment and interactive trivia.

Beyond the ticketed experiences, the Club also offers dining, a curated market, and private events. Our plan your visit page describes it as open to guests with a reservation for tours, dining, the market, private events and more. If you want a room to yourself, the club rooms come in several layouts and take groups of any size.

Four things worth knowing before you come

• Bring your booking. Have the reservation or ticket on your phone. Staff may ask for it at the door.
• No outside food or drink. Food and beverage are part of the guest experience here, so leave the cooler in the car.
• No smoking and no vaping, indoors or out, anywhere on the property. It is a historic building and it is treated like one.
• Photography for yourself is fine; professional shoots are not, unless they have been approved in writing in advance — and please do not photograph staff, performers or other guests without asking. We went into this in more detail in can you take photos inside the Pillsbury Club.

For parking, the policies page says guest parking is available on nearby public streets where legal parking is permitted, and in the designated lot across the street from the Club.

The Club is also where the trolleys leave from

This is the part visitors are most often surprised by. Minneapolis Trolley Tours departs from the mansion, which means the natural shape of an evening is to arrive early, have a drink in the bar, and then board a trolley from the front door rather than a car park.

If you are making a night or a weekend of it, our sister properties are worth knowing: 300 Clifton, the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion in Loring Park, is the only mansion in Minneapolis you can tour and sleep in, and Oakland’s on 9th has furnished studios in the middle of downtown if you are staying longer than a weekend.

So: book something

There is no membership to apply for and no one to know. Pick an experience, make a reservation, and on the day of your visit the door is yours. Hours and the practical details are on plan your visit, and if you would rather read about the house before you set foot in it, the History Journal has a hundred years of it. For the wider story of the flour fortune that built the place, the Mill City Museum down on the riverfront is the other half of the same history.

Keep reading: What Held Up the Floors and Stairs of the Pillsbury Mansion? Sheet No. 11 Answers in Steel