The museum's main building on South 5th Street. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, 2014, public domain, from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive at the Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.
General admission to the Dr Pepper Museum is $12 for anyone aged 5 and up, children 4 and under get in free, and every paid ticket includes a free drink at the soda fountain. It is open 10am to 5:30pm (last ticket 4:30pm) at 300 South 5th Street in Waco, Texas, and most people need one to two hours. Tickets are sold at the gate, card only, with no reservation needed.
| Visitor fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| General admission (ages 5 and up) | $12 |
| Children 4 and under | Free |
| 10-2-4 Club members | Free (membership is $35 a year, $50 for a family) |
| Opening hours | 10:00am to 5:30pm, last ticket 4:30pm |
| Closed | Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Day |
| How long to allow | 1 to 2 hours, or 2 to 3 when it is busy |
| Address | 300 South 5th Street, Waco, TX 76701 |
| Included in the ticket | All exhibits in both buildings, plus one free 12 oz drink at the soda fountain |
| Not included | Parking, Make-A-Soda ($20) and the other paid Experiences |
| Payment | Credit or debit card only for admission. The gift shop and soda fountain still take cash |
| Re-entry | Not allowed once you leave the campus |
| Parking | $10 plus fees for five hours in the lot across 5th Street, $10 a day at the First Baptist Church lot (Webster and 5th), or free street parking downtown |
| Contact | Call 254-757-1025, text 254-294-2399, or email help@drpeppermuseum.com |
I checked every figure in that table against the museum's own Plan Your Visit page, its Experience pages and its 10-2-4 Club page on 7 October 2026. The summer extended hours (to 7pm) ended on 6 September 2026, so 10am to 5:30pm is the schedule now. Prices and hours do change, so it is worth a glance at that page before a long drive.
Yes, there really is a Dr Pepper Museum, officially the Dr Pepper Museum & Free Enterprise Institute, and for anyone fully addicted to the stuff, it is a small pilgrimage. It is a genuine history museum about the soda, not a gimmick or a pop-up. If you love Dr Pepper, it is worth the trip.
Where is the Dr Pepper Museum?
The Dr Pepper Museum is at 300 South 5th Street in downtown Waco, Texas, in the 1906 Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company building, a yellow brick plant built to bottle Dr Pepper. It is the only official one, so if you searched "Dr Pepper Museum near me," the answer is Waco.
The setting is the point. Dr Pepper was created by pharmacist Charles Alderton at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, and the name was first used commercially in 1885, so the museum sits in the town where the drink was born, inside a building put up to bottle it. Bottling there ended in the 1960s. Dr Pepper Company donated the building to the nonprofit in 1988, the museum was established in 1989, and it opened to the public on 11 May 1991, with the whole building restored and open by May 1997. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places as the "Home of Dr Pepper."
The campus is two buildings. The main yellow brick one holds three floors of exhibits. The second, the Kellum-Rotan building, is the one with the red neon Dr Pepper sign on the side, and it holds the soda fountain and the Keurig Dr Pepper Liquid Lab, where Make-A-Soda runs.
Waco is roughly halfway between Dallas and Austin on Interstate 35, so it is an easy stop on that drive, and Magnolia Market at the Silos is within walking distance if you are making a day of it.
The World's Largest Dr Pepper Bottle
The museum's newest exhibit is a 23-foot Dr Pepper bottle, unveiled on Saturday, 9 May 2026, at the museum's 35th Birthday Bash. It is a permanent exhibit, and the two sides tell the building's story: one carries the first logo used on bottles in the original bottling building, the other the last logo used before bottling stopped there.
It stands inside the gate, so seeing it up close needs a general admission ticket, the same as the gift shop and the soda fountain. According to the museum's Big Bottle page, $123,000 of a $1,023,000 donation from The Hillman Family Foundation, in honor of Cornerstone Caregiving, went to the bottle.
How much is the Dr Pepper Museum?
General admission is $12 for anyone aged 5 and up. Children 4 and under are free, and members of the museum's own 10-2-4 Club get in free as well. That is the whole price list, which is refreshingly short for a museum this size.
A few practical things catch people out:
- Tickets are not sold online. There is nothing to book in advance for general admission. You pay at the admission booth by the main gate.
- No cash for admission. The museum switched to credit and debit cards only for admission tickets. Cash still works in the gift shop and at the soda fountain.
- Everything is behind the gate. You need admission to reach the gift shop, the soda fountain and the World's Largest Dr Pepper Bottle, so there is no popping in just for souvenirs.
- No re-entry. Once you leave the campus, you need a new ticket to come back in.
- Parking is extra. The lot across 5th Street is $10 plus fees for five hours, with no come-and-go. Free street parking downtown is first come, first served.
What the $12 does include is worth spelling out, because it is better value than it first looks: self-guided access to every exhibit, plus a free 12 oz drink at the soda fountain.
Are there Dr Pepper Museum discount tickets or coupons?
There is no standing public discount code. The museum runs occasional free-admission events and accepts Waco-McLennan County Public Library museum passes for general admission, and any legitimate promotion turns up on the museum's own site or on Waco tourism pages first. If a third-party site is selling you a "discount code" for a $12 ticket, it is not worth your card details.
What does a visit actually cost?
A family of four with two kids aged 5 or older pays $48 at the gate, plus $10 and fees if you use the museum's lot, so $58 plus fees before anything optional. Make-A-Soda is the big optional extra, at $20 for everyone in the room.
| Group | Admission | Lot parking | Total | With Make-A-Soda for everyone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One adult | $12 | $10 plus fees | $22 plus fees | $42 plus fees |
| Two adults, two kids aged 5 or older | $48 | $10 plus fees | $58 plus fees | $138 plus fees |
| Two adults and a child aged 4 or under | $24 (the child is free) | $10 plus fees | $34 plus fees | $94 plus fees |
How the table works, all from the museum's own pages:
- Parking is the paid lot across 5th Street, $10 plus fees for five hours. The First Baptist Church lot at Webster and 5th is $10 a day, and free street parking downtown takes $10 off any row if you find a space.
- Make-A-Soda is priced per space, not per bottle, so everyone in the room pays $20, including a small child who is just watching. Anyone 15 or younger needs an adult (21 or over) who also has a Make-A-Soda ticket. An extra bottle is $8.
- The free drink comes with each paid ticket. Free child admission does not include one, so add $1 at Admissions if the under-5 wants a drink too.
These are my sums from the museum's published prices on 7 October 2026, not a quote from the museum, and the lot's fees are not published.
Do you get a free Dr Pepper at the museum?
Yes. Every paid admission comes with a ticket for one free Dr Pepper (or another flavor) at the soda fountain, or $1 off an upgrade to something else on the menu. It has to be used on the day you buy admission. It is the closest thing to a genuine free Dr Pepper I know of, and it is served on the campus of the 1906 plant built to bottle the drink, which is the part that makes it worth it.
The upgrade worth knowing about: the museum calls itself the Original Home of the Dr Pepper Float, and the drink voucher takes $1 off a small or large float.
The exceptions are worth knowing: free admission vouchers, free events, library passes and free child admission (4 and under) do not come with the free drink. You can buy a drink voucher for $1 at Admissions for anyone in the group who is not covered. Details are on the museum's Free Dr Pepper page.
How long does the Dr Pepper Museum take?
Allow one to two hours, which is the museum's own recommendation. At busy times, expect two to three hours, because the lines at the soda fountain and Make-A-Soda are where the time actually goes.
That is a guide, not a rule, and it depends entirely on what kind of visitor you are.
If you breeze through the exhibits, you can do it in under an hour. If you are the type who reads every plaque, lingers over the old bottling equipment, and stops at the soda fountain for a drink, give yourself closer to two hours. With kids doing the scavenger hunt, lean toward the longer end. It is not an all-day destination, which actually makes it perfect to pair with lunch or another Waco stop.
Why is there a big hole in the Dr Pepper Museum?
The artesian well, seen from above. Photo: Michael Barera, December 2016, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped; this version is shared under the same licence.
The "hole" is the building's original artesian well, which supplied the water for the earliest Dr Peppers bottled there. It sits on the first floor among the old bottling equipment, and the museum calls it its most popular exhibit. The bottling room around it was overhauled and reopened in February 2023 as an exhibition about the people who worked in the plant, with an accessible view of the well that no longer has railings in the way.
You will not see Dr Pepper being bottled. The machines on display are part of the permanent collection and are never run, and the nearest working bottling plant is in Temple, Texas, just south of Waco.
What is there to see at the Dr Pepper Museum?
Three floors of soft drink history in the 1906 bottling plant, the artesian well, a working 1960s-style soda fountain, and the W. W. Clements Free Enterprise Institute. This is the part most fans come for, so here are the highlights.
The Old Corner Drug Store exhibit. Photo: Larry D. Moore, June 2024, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.
The bottling history is the heart of the place. The exhibits walk through how Dr Pepper went from a single drugstore syrup to a national brand, including a recreated Old Corner Drug Store, and the setting is the point: the story is told inside the 1906 plant built to bottle the drink. There is also a mock bottling line in the East Wing that simulates bottling 7UP between 1975 and 1985.
The collection is enormous and, arguably, the real treasure. The museum says it holds more than 300,000 artifacts and the broadest collection of soft drink memorabilia in the world, including Keurig Dr Pepper's corporate collection. Vintage signs, old bottles, advertising art, clocks and coolers fill the floors, and it is not only Dr Pepper: the museum describes itself as the only nonprofit museum in the US dedicated to the entire soft drink industry.
The soda fountain, in the Kellum-Rotan building, was updated with 1960s branding in 2022. It also holds Sit Down to Take a Stand, a recreated lunch counter with audio from local sit-in participants, which is a more serious corner of the museum.
The Free Enterprise Institute is the part the full name refers to. The W. W. Clements Free Enterprise Institute was created in 1997 to teach school children and adults about the American economic system, using the soft drink industry as the model for developing, producing and marketing products. There is an exhibit on W. W. Clements himself on the third floor, and the second-floor Wilton's Landing exhibit on convenience stores slips in some economics too. It is aimed largely at school groups, but the angle works for an adult fan too: the drink so many people are hooked on is also a genuine American business story.
There is also a gift shop, covered below.
Is the Dr Pepper Museum worth visiting?
For a Dr Pepper fan, yes. Twelve dollars gets you a free drink, a building that actually bottled the stuff, and what the museum calls the broadest collection of soft drink memorabilia in the world, all in a couple of hours. The museum says it had more than 220,000 paid visitors in 2023, so I am clearly not the only one who thinks so.
It is less of a fit if you are expecting a big corporate attraction in the World of Coke mould. The museum is an independent nonprofit, supported by Keurig Dr Pepper but not owned by it, and by its own description it is a history museum about the whole soft drink industry rather than a brand showroom. I count that in its favor.
What is Make-A-Soda at the Dr Pepper Museum?
Make-A-Soda is a 45-minute paid add-on where you build your own soda and take it home in a sealed 6.5 oz bottle with a custom label. It costs $20 per person on top of the $12 admission. You pick Dr Pepper, Diet Dr Pepper, 7 UP or Big Red as the base, add from a bar of simple and artisan flavors, and can buy one extra bottle for $8.
| Make-A-Soda | Detail |
|---|---|
| Price | $20 per person, plus general admission. Everyone in the room pays, since it is priced per space |
| How long | 45 minutes |
| What you leave with | One sealed 6.5 oz bottle with a custom decal (name and date) |
| Extra bottle | $8, one per person, paid at the experience |
| Group size | Up to 30 people per time slot |
| Where | The Keurig Dr Pepper Liquid Lab in the Kellum-Rotan building |
| Booking | Online, in timed slots. Arrive 15 minutes early to buy admission |
| Cancellations | Full refund if you cancel by 11:59pm the night before, none on the day |
| Kids | Anyone 15 or younger needs an adult (21 or over) who also has a Make-A-Soda ticket |
It is the one thing at the museum you cannot do anywhere else, which is why the line for it is where visits run long. Details are on the museum's Make-A-Soda page.
What is the Extreme Pepper Experience?
The top-tier option, at $100 per person: a private guided tour of both historic museum buildings, a glass bottle of Dr Pepper and a large Dr Pepper float, Make-A-Soda included, and free parking (a $10 value). Groups are capped at six, it runs Wednesday to Saturday in two slots (10:30am to 12:30pm and 2:30pm to 4:30pm), and minors need an adult over 21 with them. You book through the Extreme Pepper Experience page, there are no same-day reservations, and cancellations need 48 hours' notice for a refund.
What is the Dr Pepper Museum Paranormal Experience?
A two-hour after-hours ghost tour, 7pm to 9pm on select Saturdays, for $35 per person. Guides take groups of up to 16 through both buildings, including the otherwise off-limits basement of the Kellum-Rotan building, with EMF readers and flashlights, and you get a glass bottle of Dr Pepper. It is for ages 18 and up, closed-toe shoes are required, and you sign a waiver. Dates are on the Paranormal Experience page.
What is in the Dr Pepper Museum gift shop?
The gift shop is inside the gate, so it needs a general admission ticket, and it takes cash as well as cards. Members of the 10-2-4 Club get 20% off there and at the soda fountain.
If Waco is not on your route, the museum runs an online gift shop with apparel, hats, glass bottles, drinkware and sweet treats, plus a Big Bottle Collection named for the new exhibit. For other Dr Pepper merch you can order online, I keep a roundup of Dr Pepper merch and gift ideas.
Is the Dr Pepper Museum in Dublin, Texas?
No. The Dr Pepper Museum is in Waco. Dublin, Texas, about 90 miles west of the museum by road, is home to Dublin Bottling Works, which stopped bottling Dr Pepper in January 2012 when an agreement transferred its Dr Pepper bottling and distribution rights to Dr Pepper Snapple Group.
The mix-up is understandable. Dublin Bottling Works dates from 1891 and, by its own history, was the first plant to actually bottle Dr Pepper and the first bottling plant in Texas. Its pure cane sugar version came to be called "Dublin Dr Pepper", and for years the plant ran tours, a soda shop and a museum.
They are not open now. The Dublin Bottling Works FAQ says it no longer gives factory tours of the antique bottling plant or the museum, Old Doc's Soda Shop is closed, and the W.P. Kloster Museum, its big collection of soda memorabilia, is currently closed. The retail store is open Monday to Friday and sells the company's own cane sugar sodas, but no Dr Pepper. If you want a Dr Pepper museum you can walk around today, Waco is the one.
What is the 10-2-4 Club?
The 10-2-4 Club is the Dr Pepper Museum's membership: $35 a year for one person or $50 for a family of up to four in the same household, with unlimited free admission. It also gets you 20% off in the gift shop and at the soda fountain, the Lion's Roar email newsletter, member-only online seminars, and the member rate and early registration for the club's annual convention. Membership runs for one year from the date you buy it. Free admission does not cover the paid Experiences, and parking is not free for members outside convention events.
The name comes from the old slogan "Drink a Bite to Eat at 10-2&4 O'Clock," which put a clock dial with 10, 2 and 4 on Dr Pepper ads and logos from 1927 to the 1970s. The club started as a collectors' club: thirteen collectors first met at the old Waco bottling plant on 3 September 1983, and in 2023 the members voted to hand the membership and convention over to the museum, according to the club's history page.
Is it worth it? On admission alone, an individual membership pays for itself on the third visit ($35 against three $12 tickets), and a family membership pays for itself on the second visit if four of you come ($50 against $48 a visit). For a one-off trip, just buy the ticket. Membership details are on the 10-2-4 Club page.
A few tips for fellow fans
A handful of things worth knowing before a visit:
- Bring a card. Admission is card only, and there is no online general admission ticket to buy ahead.
- Get there well before 4:30pm, which is when the last ticket of the day is sold.
- Budget one to two hours so you are not rushed at the fountain, and claim the free drink your ticket already paid for on the same day.
- Do the gift shop last. There is no re-entry once you leave the campus.
- The paid lot is across 5th Street at $10 plus fees for five hours. Free street parking exists downtown if you are early enough to find it.
- Book Make-A-Soda online before you go if you want it, since it runs in timed slots of up to 30 people.
- If you are traveling I-35 between Dallas and Austin, this is a natural and easy detour.
If the museum gets you curious about the drink itself, there is a whole write-up on the 23 flavors of Dr Pepper and what supposedly goes into that famous blend. Reading that after walking through the history exhibits is a fun way to round out the trip.
For a fan, the Dr Pepper Museum is a small, focused couple of hours. It is not a sprawling mega-attraction, and that is the point: it is a love letter to one drink, in the town where that drink got its start.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Dr Pepper Museum hours?
10am to 5:30pm, with the last ticket sold at 4:30pm. It is open year-round except Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Summer extended hours to 7pm ended on 6 September 2026. Checked against the museum's Plan Your Visit page on 7 October 2026.
Can you pay cash at the Dr Pepper Museum?
Not for admission. Tickets are credit or debit card only. The gift shop and soda fountain still accept cash for purchases there.
Can you visit the Dr Pepper Museum gift shop without a ticket?
No. General admission is required to get onto the campus, and that includes the gift shop, the soda fountain and the World's Largest Dr Pepper Bottle. The museum's online gift shop at shop.drpeppermuseum.com needs no ticket.
Is the Dr Pepper Museum owned by Keurig Dr Pepper?
No. It is an independent nonprofit. Keurig Dr Pepper and its bottlers support it, and the museum looks after Keurig Dr Pepper's corporate collection, but the company does not own or run it.
Does the museum say Dr Pepper has prune juice in it?
The opposite. The museum's FAQ says "There is no prune juice (or ever was) in Dr Pepper." The full story of that rumor is in does Dr Pepper have prune juice.
Sources
Prices, hours and rules come from the Dr Pepper Museum's own pages, checked 7 October 2026. The cost table and the Dublin section are my own work from those figures and the sources linked below.
- Plan Your Visit: hours, prices, closures, parking, payment, re-entry, the two buildings, the artesian well, visit length, and ownership.
- History of Dr Pepper Museum: the 1988 donation, the 1991 opening, the Free Enterprise Institute, the collection size, and the exhibits.
- Free Dr Pepper and the Soda Fountain page: the free drink and the float upgrade.
- Make-A-Soda, Extreme Pepper Experience and Paranormal Experience: the paid add-ons.
- 10-2-4 Club, 10-2-4 Club History and Collections Correspondence: membership, the club's history, the 2023 visitor figure, and the slogan.
- FAQ: the prune juice answer.
- World's Largest Dr Pepper Bottle: the bottle's height, the unveiling date, the two logos and the donation.
- Dr Pepper Museum Gift Shop: the online store and its categories.
- Dublin Bottling Works FAQs and Our History: the 1891 founding, the first-to-bottle claim, the January 2012 agreement, and what is closed now.
- OpenStreetMap driving route from the museum to Dublin Bottling Works: about 91 miles (80 in a straight line).
Photos: the building exterior by Carol M. Highsmith (public domain, Library of Congress), the artesian well by Michael Barera (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the Old Corner Drug Store exhibit by Larry D. Moore (CC BY 4.0), all via Wikimedia Commons and credited under each image. They are not my photos.
I am a fan, not affiliated with the museum or with Keurig Dr Pepper.