Short answer
- Holiday reservations open 1 October 2026, 9:00 a.m. Central, through OpenTable only, with a card to hold the table.
- A table by the Great Tree cannot be requested. The restaurant states twice that table assignments are not guaranteed, and that is what almost everyone is booking for.
- You cannot go in just to look. Only guests with a reservation may enter. There is a selfie spot outside.
- The holiday menu prices are published only as JPEG images, so no figure can be read from them. The breakfast events do publish prices: $34.95 and $49.95 for adults.
- The tree is up 7 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, 65 days, which outlasts ZooLights and all three Christkindlmarkets.
01The short version
Book this morning if you want a date in December, and book it knowing you cannot ask for the tree. Those two sentences are the whole page. The restaurant takes bookings from 1 October 2026 at 9 a.m. Chicago time, through OpenTable and nowhere else, and it is explicit that where you sit is not part of what you are booking.
It is worth being clear about what this is, because the search results for it are a strange place. On 1 October 2026 the first page of Google for this restaurant contained no official page at all: a Reddit thread about a menu from 118 years ago, Apple Maps, a Facebook group, a marketplace for reselling restaurant reservations, TikTok, a Yelp question from 2018. The restaurant's own site was not on it. Everything below comes from that site.
02The table by the tree is not bookable
The Great Tree is 45 feet tall, it has been built by the store's artisans every year since 1907, and the restaurant is in its 119th year. Sitting under it is the reason the booking page falls over every autumn. So this answer, from the restaurant's own Holiday Dining FAQ, is the most useful sentence on their website:
"Can I request a table by the tree?" The answer: "Specific table assignments cannot be guaranteed at any time." And further down the same page, in case it was missed: "Tree-view table assignments are not guaranteed."
That is not a complaint. A 17,000 square foot dining room cannot promise several hundred people a specific table, and saying so plainly is better than the alternative. But it changes what the booking is. You are booking a meal in the room that contains the tree, not a seat beside it, and the lists that describe this as "dinner under the Great Tree" are selling something the restaurant does not.
And there is no fallback. Asked whether you can come in to take a photo without eating, the restaurant answers "Only guests with a reservation can enter the restaurant", and offers a selfie spot outside the restaurant with a view of the tree. So the tree is not something you wander up to the seventh floor to see while shopping. It is behind a reservation, and the reservation does not come with a view of it.
03If you do not get a table
Start with what nothing can buy you: a way inside. No tour visits the Walnut Room, and the reason is the rule in section 02. Only guests with a reservation may enter, so there is no group a guide could walk in. Anyone selling you the Walnut Room as a stop is selling you the pavement outside it.
What does exist is two holiday walking tours of downtown, both two hours, both passing the building, and they are a genuine choice rather than the same thing twice.
The two holiday walking tours, side by side
| Christmas Tree Crawl | Chicago Seasonal Stroll | |
|---|---|---|
| Costs | From $35 | From $44.99 |
| Operator | Inside Chicago Walking Tours | Bobby's Bike, Hike & Food Tours - Chicago |
| Evidence behind it | 4.86 from 44 reviews | 5.00 from 5 reviews |
| Group size | Up to 20 | Up to 15 |
| What it calls the building | The old Marshall Field's | Macy's iconic holiday windows |
| Goes inside the Walnut Room | No. Nothing does | No. Nothing does |
| If it rains | States it does not run, and refunds | States it operates in all weather |
| If too few people book | Does not cancel for that | May be cancelled. Minimum numbers apply |
| Christkindlmarket | Named as a stop | Front-of-line access, to a free market |
| Included | Guide and holiday sweets | Guide. No food or drink |
Read from the Viator API with get_experience_details on 30 September and 1 October 2026, so both operators are taken from the product record rather than guessed from the title. Availability checked for 5 to 15 December 2026. Note that the Seasonal Stroll's record states it operates in all weather while its cancellation terms also allow cancellation for bad weather. Both statements are in the same record and we are not going to resolve which governs.
The two highlighted rows are the decision. The cheaper tour has nine times the review evidence, 44 against 5, and a perfect five from five reviews is not better than a 4.86 from 44, it is just less measured. And the dearer one states that minimum numbers apply and it may be cancelled after confirmation if too few people book, which in the first week of November is a real risk and not a formality.
Both of them, and what each is for
More evidence, lower price
Christmas Tree Crawl, two hours around downtown
4.86 · 44 reviews
A guided walk between the Christmas trees and displays of the Loop and the Magnificent Mile, naming the old Marshall Field's and the Christkindlmarket among its stops, with a guide and a couple of holiday sweets included. It is the one we would take of the two, for the dull reason that 44 reviews at 4.86 is the strongest score in our whole Chicago catalogue and five reviews is not a score at all. Two caveats: it states it does not operate in rain, contacting you that morning to cancel and refund, and its child pricing stops at ten, so an eleven-year-old pays the adult fare.
Wider route, thinner evidence
Chicago Seasonal Stroll, Loop to the Wrigley Building
5.00 · 5 reviews
Covers more ground than the other one: Macy's holiday windows, the city's official Christmas tree, the Millennium Park rink, the Mag Mile lights and the Wrigley Building, ending a mile north of where it starts. It also includes front-of-line access to the Christkindlmarket, which is worth knowing is a market anyone can walk into for nothing, so what you are skipping is a queue and not a ticket. Five reviews is almost no evidence, and its own listing says minimum numbers apply and it may be cancelled after confirmation.
The cheapest thing in this section is still not on it. The Macy's holiday windows are on State Street, outside, and cost nothing to stand in front of, as does the Christkindlmarket itself and admission to the rink at Millennium Park. Both tours are paying for a guide and a route, which is a reasonable thing to pay for, and neither is paying for access. If you would rather keep trying for the table, the rest of this page is what it costs and what the restaurant asks of you.
04What it costs, and what is not published
Three things carry a published price, and all three are the events rather than the restaurant.
The prices the restaurant publishes as text
| When | Adult | Child | Terms | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Tree Breakfast Buffet | 8:15-10:30 a.m., 11 dates | $34.95 | $24.95 | Kids 12 and under at the child price. Under 2 eat free |
| Breakfast with Santa | 8:15-11:00 a.m., 3 Sundays | $49.95 | $29.95 | Kids 12 and under at the child price. Under 2 eat free |
| Large party, 21 to 50 guests | Private dining in the Culinary Studio | $50.00 | $20.00 | Stated as a starting price. $10 per guest if cancelled inside 7 days |
Read from the Holiday Dining FAQ at macysrestaurants.com on 1 October 2026. The Great Tree Breakfast Buffet runs on 11 dates and Breakfast with Santa on 3 Sundays, all listed in the FAQ section below. The large party figure is stated by the restaurant as a starting price.
The main holiday menu is a different matter, and this is the part worth knowing before you plan a budget. The restaurant publishes it only as two JPEG images, with no text alternative attached to either. Nothing can read a price out of them: not a screen reader, not Google, and not us. We are not going to guess at figures from a picture and present them as measured, so this page does not carry the holiday menu prices at all.
The nearest thing to a number comes from OpenTable, which the restaurant itself calls its trusted partner reservation service and which is the only way to book. It puts the restaurant in the $31 to $50 band per person and carries 4.6 from 9,568 reviews. Read on 1 October 2026, its page also said the restaurant had been booked 140 times that day, and that was before the holiday season had opened at all.
Four things the restaurant does not publish
| What is missing | |
|---|---|
| Holiday opening hours | Its own page says "HOLIDAY 2026 RESTAURANT HOURS COMING SOON", next to the button that takes bookings from today |
| Holiday menu prices | Published only as two JPEG images with no text alternative, so no screen reader, no search engine and no reader can extract a figure from them |
| A table by the tree | Stated twice as not guaranteed, and it is the reason almost everyone books |
| The cancellation policy | A card is required to hold the booking and is charged "unless a cancellation policy applies", without the policy being stated for ordinary tables |
Checked against macysrestaurants.com/walnut-room/ and its Holiday Dining FAQ on 1 October 2026. This table exists because a gap in the source is a finding, not something to fill in with an estimate.
The first row is the one with a date attached. Bookings open this morning for a season whose opening hours the restaurant has not published. Its page carries the line "HOLIDAY 2026 RESTAURANT HOURS COMING SOON" directly above the button that takes your booking. The hours below are the ordinary ones, which it says will change for the holidays.
Ordinary hours, which it says change for the holidays
| Days | Open |
|---|---|
| Sunday, Monday, Tuesday | 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. |
| Wednesday, Thursday, Friday | 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. |
| Saturday | 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. |
Read from macysrestaurants.com/walnut-room/ on 1 October 2026, on the same page that says holiday hours are still to come. Afternoon Tea, a separate $45 per person sitting on OpenTable, has its last service of 2026 on 30 October, before the holiday season starts.
05The season, against everything else open
The Great Tree opens 13 days before ZooLights and closes 7 days after it. Of the four winter seasons we have measured in Chicago, this is the first to open and the last to close, at 65 days against 45 for ZooLights and 35 for the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza.
That matters in one specific case. If your trip falls in the first week of November or the first week of January, most of what gets written about Christmas in Chicago has not started or has already finished, and this has. Between 4 and 10 January it is the only one of the four still running at all. The same goes for the other end: 7 to 19 November, when the markets and the lights are still closed.
06The rules nobody repeats
None of these is hidden. All of them are on the page you book from, and none appeared in the round-ups we read first.
What the restaurant states about the table
| What it says | |
|---|---|
| How long you get | 90 minutes, stated as a limit in consideration of other guests |
| If you are late | The booking is cancelled if the FULL party has not arrived 15 minutes after the time |
| Getting in without a booking | Only a limited number of high-top seats at the Wine Bar, which may be available. No waitlist and no pager |
| With a pushchair, no booking | Highchairs and strollers cannot be accommodated at the Wine Bar, which is the only walk-in option |
| Seeing the tree without eating | Not possible. Only guests with a reservation may enter. There is a selfie spot outside with a view of it |
| Holding the table | A credit card is required, and OpenTable is the only booking route |
| The alert if it is full | Their own FAQ: availability "is shared with everyone requesting that date, so act quickly" |
Read from the Holiday Dining FAQ at macysrestaurants.com on 1 October 2026. The two highlighted rows are the ones that can cost you the table on the day.
The fifteen-minute rule is stricter than it reads. It is not that you must arrive within fifteen minutes. It is that the full party must. One person stuck on the Red Line cancels the table for everyone, and the restaurant asks you to be there five to ten minutes early on top of that.
The walk-in option is worth reading twice too. There may be high-top seats at the Wine Bar, with the full menu and all ages welcome, no waitlist and no pager. And then: highchairs and strollers cannot be accommodated there. The one route in without a booking is closed to exactly the families the Fairy Princesses and Breakfast with Santa are aimed at.
One line in that FAQ is unusually honest and worth repeating. On using OpenTable's alert feature when a date is full, the restaurant writes that availability "is shared with everyone requesting that date, so act quickly". That is a restaurant telling you its waiting list is a race rather than a queue, which most would leave you to find out.
07Questions people actually ask
When do Walnut Room reservations open for 2026?
1 October 2026, 9:00 a.m. Central, and they are taken only through OpenTable. That date is published on the restaurant's own site next to the booking button. It moves: the 2025 season opened on 25 September. A credit card is required to hold the table, and the restaurant says it is not charged "unless a cancellation policy applies", without stating that policy for an ordinary table.
Can you request a table by the Christmas tree?
You can ask, and the restaurant says twice that it cannot be promised. Its Holiday Dining FAQ answers the question with "Specific table assignments cannot be guaranteed at any time", and repeats lower down that "Tree-view table assignments are not guaranteed". This is worth knowing before you book, because sitting near the 45 feet tree is the reason most people are booking at all.
Can you see the Great Tree without a reservation?
No. The restaurant's own words are "Only guests with a reservation can enter the restaurant." What it offers instead is a selfie spot outside the restaurant with a view of the tree. So the tree is not a thing you drop in to see on a shopping trip, which is how most round-ups describe it.
How much does the Walnut Room cost?
For the holiday menu, we cannot tell you, and nor can anyone reading the restaurant's site: it publishes that menu only as two JPEG images with no text alternative, so no figure can be extracted from it. What it does publish in text are the breakfast events. The Great Tree Breakfast Buffet is $34.95 for adults and $24.95 for children 12 and under. Breakfast with Santa is $49.95 and $29.95. Under-twos eat free at both. OpenTable, the restaurant's own booking partner, puts the general price band at $31 to $50 a head.
When is the Great Tree up in 2026?
7 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, which is 65 days. That makes it the longest of the four Chicago winter seasons we have measured: it opens 13 days before ZooLights at Lincoln Park Zoo and closes 7 days after it, and it outlasts all three Christkindlmarkets. The Fairy Princesses visit daily across the same dates.
How long do you get at the table?
Ninety minutes, which the restaurant states as a limit in consideration of other guests. There is a second clock too: the booking is cancelled if the full party has not arrived within 15 minutes of the reservation time, so a late friend costs everyone the table, not just the seat.
Can you walk in to the Walnut Room without a booking?
Only to the Wine Bar, and only sometimes. The restaurant says a limited number of high-top seats may be available for walk-ins, that the full menu is served there and all ages are welcome, and that there is no waitlist and no pager system. The catch for the people most likely to want this: highchairs and strollers cannot be accommodated at the Wine Bar.
Is there a tour that takes you into the Walnut Room?
Not one we could find, and the restaurant's own rule explains why: only guests with a reservation may enter, so no walking tour can bring a group in. Two holiday walking tours pass the building. The Christmas Tree Crawl at $35, which names "the old Marshall Field's" among its stops, and the Chicago Seasonal Stroll at $44.99, which names "Macy's iconic holiday windows". Both are outside. The windows are on the street and free to look at.
Where is the Walnut Room?
111 North State Street, 7th floor of the Macy's State Street store, which was Marshall Field's. It is 480 metres from Millennium Park, about 6 minutes on foot, so it is one of the closest sit-down meals to the Bean. The restaurant tells you to take the express lifts near Randolph and State, in the first-floor handbag department.
What is Santaland and when does it open?
A separate thing in the same store, with a separate booking date. The restaurant's FAQ says Santaland runs 7 November to 24 December, Friday to Sunday only until 22 November and then seven days a week, and that its reservations open on 31 October. So the store takes bookings for its restaurant and its Santa on two different dates a month apart.
Diego FresnoI have not eaten in the Walnut Room: I was in Chicago in July 2025, when the seventh floor of Macy's has no tree on it. So this page does not tell you whether Mrs Hering's chicken pot pie is any good. What it does is read the restaurant's own Holiday Dining FAQ line by line on the morning its bookings opened, which is where the tree-table answer, the fifteen-minute rule for the full party and the ninety-minute table all came from. None of the three were in anything I read first, and the first page of Google for this restaurant does not contain the restaurant.
Season dates, booking date, the Great Tree answers, the full-party rule, the 90-minute limit, walk-in terms, breakfast event dates and prices, large party pricing and the Santaland dates read from macysrestaurants.com/walnut-room/ and macysrestaurants.com/holidaydiningfaq/ on 1 October 2026, the day holiday reservations opened. Price band, rating, review count and the bookings-today figure from the restaurant's own booking partner OpenTable, read the same day. Walking distance routed with OpenRouteService on OpenStreetMap data from Millennium Park, the anchor used across this site. The comparison of the four winter seasons uses our own measured data for ZooLights and the three Christkindlmarkets. The two walking tours read from the Viator API with get_experience_details. NOT verified and therefore absent: the holiday menu prices, which the restaurant publishes only as images with no text alternative; the holiday opening hours, which it has not published; and what the food is like.