Schützenfestzelt

In 1896, the first state shooting competition took place at the Wiesn; since 1926, it has even been held in its own Schützen Festhalle. The tent finally took up its current location at the foot of the Bavaria statue in 1961. While the shooters' tent initially offered no food or drink service at all, it still struggled decades later to gain recognition due to its remote location outside of Wirtsbudenstraße.

In 2014, the beer garden had to do without a few tables because the street between the Schützenzelt and the Winzerer Fahndl had to be widened. For 2015, the city council approved an expansion to a capacity of 7,000 visitors. The loss of capacity due to the further reduction in the size of the beer garden was more than offset by the addition of a wraparound gallery.

For lunch, daily changing dishes entice visitors to the Mittagswiesn. Otherwise, the menu is among the more expensive options among the large fest tents. Some dishes are priced disproportionately high.

Atmosphere and Music

Once neglected on the outskirts of the fairgrounds, the tide turned in the 2000s. The Reinbold family, which has been running the tent since 1979 and had it rebuilt in both 2004 and 2015, has established it in recent years as one of the main attractions for Munich’s “golden youth.” Or at least the gold-plated kind. While the tent previously had only a small unreserved section, even that will be a thing of the past on weekends starting in 2025. It will be interesting to see whether this will lead to a lasting change in the tent’s clientele. After all, the younger crowd—who used to line up early Saturday mornings at the Bavaria entrance to secure a spot in the Schützenzelt—now has nowhere to go at all.

Whereas in the past it was mostly aspiring lawyers and management consultants, it’s now a slightly older generation that’s being hosted by the Reinbold family—as well as, of course, a large number of shooting association members. This becomes particularly evident on the first Sunday, when the tent is almost entirely in the hands of Trachten- und Schützenzug participants. Traditional brass band music is generally only a marginal feature in the Schützenzelt. Even the city’s final report on the 2014 Oktoberfest noted that “the band in the Schützenfestzelt had considerable difficulty playing traditional brass band music.” This is particularly regrettable, given that the band performs exceptionally well at other festivals.

Reservations 2026

Attractive slots are rarely offered publicly. However, in the past years, we were at least able to pass some Sunday lunch reservations on to our reservation alarm subscribers. You can join it using the registration form on this page. The reservation form opened on February 2nd, including lunchtime slots for Monday through Thursday and very early shifts for the last two Sundays.

After accepting a reservation, the customer is asked to confirm the reservation again, at which point menus are also offered. This is neither necessary nor recommended. However, care should also be taken when selecting the minimum consumption: in addition to the city-approved minimum consumption of two beers and half a chicken, an appetizer platter is automatically added. This must then be deselected so as not to order it.