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Eating at the Costco Food Court Will Now Require A Membership
- Thread starter Walter White Walker
- Start date
I've probably been viewing this the wrong way. The more I think of it, it is not much different from a movie theater having people pay a ticket if they want the popcorn and drink.
Saw this a week or two ago and of course just as a Costco is planned to be built in the Mid-Michigan area. I get it though, this topic being so big over it is embarrassing.
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I don't think that's a good comparison either as movie theaters make their money off the food and not the ticket sale. Plus many theaters will gladly sell you the food without a ticket and their concession stand is before the ticket taker.
I thought you even need a membership to buy.
Metro does every Tuesday
It's literally the opposite of that. Theaters make all their on their concessions. Most theaters will HAPPILY let you in to just buy concessions. All the theaters, around here anyway, don't check your tickets until you get past the concessions and go towards the theaters themselves.
TIL it wasn't always like this. Aside from the grease trap pizza that hits the spot when you're feeling especially nasty, it's not exactly exceptional. I use my Costco card for water, paper towel and television upgrades every few years exclusively, not the grub.
EDIT - WAIT, I'M A FILTHY LIAR, THOSE ROTISSERIE CHICKENS ARE GREAT FOR SANDWICHES AND I GOBBLE THEM UP LIKE THEY'RE GOING OUT OF STYLE.
EDIT - WAIT, I'M A FILTHY LIAR, THOSE ROTISSERIE CHICKENS ARE GREAT FOR SANDWICHES AND I GOBBLE THEM UP LIKE THEY'RE GOING OUT OF STYLE.
Not really since the food at sporting events have high margin and they're not used as a selling point to get you to go to watch the sport. They know once you're there, you have no choice if you want to buy food. That's why any event like sports, a convention, a concert, etc has expensive food. The comparison isn't even remotely close.
As someone who's gotten a lot through Costco be it food or medication, and thinks they do a lot better on the humane front than many big businesses... people getting defensive about nOn-MeMbErS buying 1.50 of hot dog and soda is one of the more embarrassing displays I've seen on this forum. Fuck ya'll. Let them eat.
THis is probably smartly timed with the virus as well, to limit the influx of people entering the doors. Door checkers wont let you in now without a card on either side.
You don't think losing money will have any impact on other things such as the humane things they do? Why not ask them to give the food away for free then?
They're called immersion circulators.
Do you not have a stove and a pot either?
On food court fare? Not really. Those items have attracted people to the pharmacy and to sign up to shop the warehouse for decades, but it's certainly not out of the realm of reason for reactive forumites or an out-of-touch exec to only see missing pennies in the short term in that exchange.
This post is either a joke or just confusing. There's so many ways to cook a hot dog. Eating out isn't a solution to fix your potential food woes. You can't get samples without a membership....
Yes, you are viewing it wrong and your comparison isn't the same nor really helping you understand how this works. There have been a lot of clear explanations of why Costco may be making this move, from a business perspective.
I think they do understand which is the reason they haven't raised the price in 35 years despite rising food costs over several decades and have taken steps to control their supply chain to maintain it. What nobody can explain is under what obligation or benefit should Costco have to lose money on the food to non members and if they should, why aren't people asking to make the food available for free to non members then?
"We will be saving money by not selling stuff that losses money and firing 1 or 2 employees from that section"
Idk, I love their stuffed crust though. If Costco does stuffed crust, I'll never go anywhere else.
You keep saying this without any evidence on what percentage of the traffic is impacted by this. Their lines are long. Cutting down the wait time doesn't mean they'll need less people.
Are people actually getting defensive about that though? From what I've seen, it's more people being defensive about being accused of hating poor people or being a capitalist zealot because they understand the logic and reasoning for the company to make this change. Perhaps I missed or glossed over some posts?
Personally, I could not care less if people without memberships are going to Costco to buy cheap hot dogs and pizza from the food court. If the store lets you do it, by all means go for it. But I'm also not going to think too poorly of Costco for closing this loophole if it makes business sense for them. They're not screwing anyone over by doing this.
I mean, I just gave you Costco's self-benefit (one they've themselves talked up in years past). Clearly someone, somewhere thinks there's more to be gained now by boxing off the cheap eats to people who will commit to a membership upfront. I'm not convinced, and the food is nonetheless a positive for folks who can use it but are between memberships (been there myself).
I'm not a huge fan of stuffed crust, but Little Caesars has it. If you don't care at all about health (and if you're eating Costco pizzas, you don't) I think LC is actually a cheaper option anyway.
Is there any benefit at all for cutting out the none members from the lunch area?
edit: aside from members not wanting non-members there.
I definitely did not foresee this conversation becoming a 500-post discussion. Over some hot dogs and pizza.
Apparently Costco is oppressing the poor by requiring their rules be followed. Who knew.
in theory:
for members the benefit is shorter lines
for costco the benefit is fewer sales of loss-leading items to nonmembers
in practice i doubt the lines are getting much shorter. i really don't think there will be much of an impact to me. but i will be happy to be wrong because that means i will notice shorter lines at the food court.
Not sure if you're joking at this point, but yeah, they're losing money on it.
I do wonder if this will actually have an effect on the insane parking in some of the local costcos, but I doubt it. I can't imagine that many people drive there just to eat outside of lunch hour and after hours, and these costcos are packed from like before opening.
I also kind of wonder what the gas lines would be like if they didn't require a membership (I realize NJ doesn't, is it like insane there?) They are already long at most hours of the day.
Nothing they sell at the food court is sold at a loss. The only food item I can think of would be the rotisserie chicken, but you need a membership to buy that.
The reason they made this move was twofold, increase membership and decrease the wait time for members in the food court.
Lets have a discussiong about this, lets say they lose about 20% traffic at the lunch area for this. You don't think they will fire 1 employee since the dont need them anymore.
I was wondering how the subject would birth 10 pages… I see it turned into a class debate. I will say don't really eat there too much because I go to Costco in the mornings and you just can't eat that kind of food in the mornings unless you want to nap for half the day. You always saw a lot of families eating at the food court, I'm sure many were lower income.Would I pay an extra five dollars so those people could keep eating without a membership( Or whatever it would be) ?Of course I would
I just don't bother gassing at Costco. They've never had the best price and the lines just make it not worth it. I can easily find something cheaper or the same cost and at worse, just a tad more expensive where I'm okay paying a couple pennies more per gallon or what is essentially a whole quarter for a tank of gas to avoid the crazy line. It never made sense to me why people around here go to Costco gas.
It's reasonably tasty and one of the cheapest ways to eat in many places (your mileage will vary, ofc).
if you just look at the menu it's not , that said, yes this is totally anecdotal , but every single person I know that has a Costco membership absolutely adores at least one item on that menu. They used to have this ice cream bar and dipped in chocolate and they would roll it in almonds like a Häagen-Dazs it was the most amazing thing
There are definitely charities out there where you can donate that $5 to to help a poor family eat. I would totally suggest you, (and anyone who can afford to), do that. And many services will actually try to help provide lower income families a more balanced diet than Hot Dogs and Pizza.
Where are you living that there are gas stations with better prices than Costco? Costco is generally 20-30 cents cheaper than standalone gas stations where I've been.
It actually is pretty tasty. I've known plenty of pizza-enthusiasts who rank Costco pizza pretty high in terms of quality and value.
The Caesar salad with chicken breast they sell there for 4 bucks would easily go for twice as much (or more) anywhere else. For the price, they are easily one of the best values even if the food itself isn't the healthiest.
And 1.50 for a soda and a large (and tasty) hotdog is an insane value by just about any metric.
At the end of the day my sympathies lie with the people who want cheap hot dogs and not the people denying cheap hot dogs.
Solidarity ✊
Solidarity ✊
boil them or steam them or do you not have running water or electricity or a kitchen
In my area of Pacoima, CA there is a Gas Station right before the 118 Freeway on ramp that has a lot of traffic due to the prices being the same as a costco one block away. When i go get my gas at 6:00am in the morning that gas station is full while the costco only has a few cars at the same time.
I was under the misconception that non-members were supposed to be allowed in the food court. From what I've read on the Costco subreddit it was always supposed to be members only, they are just planning on enforcing it now.
Ouuufh I'm just talking about this topic right here, you have no idea what else to do in my life bro chill. So I don't just sound snarky for no reason…
A lot of lower income families like to "go out to eat " sometimes.
Often times those families usually have young kids so they need a place where they can all fit and maybe their kids arent so well behaved ( they're kids after all) so they need a loud place with lots of commotion where people aren't really gonna pay attention to them, they need a place where they can buy something cheap and most likely share it amongst themselves.Maybe Costco is all they have, maybe the McDonald's doesn't have a play place anymore, maybe spending $1.50 and putting four straws in the drink is what they have to do and on and on.
I've seen this over and over and over, I would not be about depriving people ( this is just the first example of person who would be affected) of that type of small comfort.
Of course this is probably a lot of overthinking over the topic but hey people brought it here
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