13 Costco Food Court Secrets Not Many Know

The Costco food court is technically a fast food restaurant, and also among the most unassumingly and consistently great ones out there. So fast and so inexpensive that it boggles the mind, the food stand at the front of most every Costco warehouse-style club store pumps out so many pizzas, hot dogs, frozen desserts, sodas, and Chicken Bakes that there simply have to be some industry secrets involved in making it run so efficiently. That's all true — to ensure that things operate smoothly, the Costco food court employs many techniques and technologies to make a lot of food in as little time as possible for as little money as possible, benefits it passes on to customers in the form of exceedingly low prices. Where else can one get a giant hot dog and a soda for $1.50, or an entire, freshly-cooked, very large pepperoni-loaded pizza for under 10 bucks? It works so well already that Costco's food court never even has to change.

But there's a lot of secret and fascinating knowledge about the operation just waiting to be uncovered. Here's what's really going on behind the counter and behind the scenes at the Costco food court.

Pizza preferences are strictly subjective, but one thing everyone can agree on about pizza from the Costco food court is that it's ready to eat remarkably quickly. While the baking time is just six minutes, the preparation period is equally small and efficient, which helps to both meet the near-constant customer demand and keep down food and labor costs. The key factor to making Costco pizza: fast and precise robots.

First, a rested, proofed, and oiled ball of dough (prepared off-site and sent to individual Costco stores daily) gets hit by an automatic dough spreading machine, which flattens it into the proper disc shape along with heating it at 130 degrees Fahrenheit for seven seconds. Then that dough gets its layer of sauce, the exact perfectly calculated amount, applied by a robot that consists mainly of a pizza sauce-squirting apparatus affixed to a turntable. That consumes about 30 seconds before human employees add cheese and toppings. They act as quickly as possible, dispensing pre-measured amounts of cheese — 24 ounces for a plain pie, 12 ounces for pepperoni. Before it gets it in the oven for its flash-roasting, pepperoni pizzas get their topping — exactly 60 pieces of cured meat per pie.

One reason why the Costco food court is able to produce and serve such a high volume of pizzas at a rapid pace is by keeping things simple. Customers can get their pizza in cheese-only, pepperoni, and — once upon a time — supreme styles. Costco even cuts pizza to uniform perfection with a giant hexagon "pizza fence." None of this leaves much room for error, or modification. Still, there are some ways to hack the ultra-limited Costco food court pizza process and get a product made to your preferred doneness and presentation.

When ordering a single slice at Costco, one can casually ask for the already cooked and ready to eat piece to be sent back through the oven to get it to an extra done, crispy cook. This hack, like so many other secret menu and fast food modifications, is subject to many — mostly human — factors. For example, the food court employee has to feel like doing it, plus, they may not have gotten this request or heard of the process before. And it needs to not be busy so that employee has the time to work the pizza oven for a few minutes.

Along with changing doneness Costco food courts can cut whole pies into any permutation you want: double sliced, or into many small pieces, a square cut, or not at all. You're also missing out on a totally free pizza upgrade — Costco will add diced onions free of charge.

Treats for sale at the Costco food court may vary by location and come and go without warning. But there are two items that will probably never go away, as they're the signature items and absolute staples of the warehouse store's snack stand. Costco pizza and Costco hot dogs are both widely beloved and heavily consumed. There are 584 Costco stores in the U.S., meaning there are 584 Costco food courts serving up pizza all day long. That would technically place Costco in the top 10 of the most voluminous pizza chains in the U.S., with more locations than MOD Pizza and slightly less than Godfather's Pizza. Its business model is so lucrative that it doesn't have to compete with bigger chains — Costco probably won't ever deliver pizza.

Costco is also easily one of the nation's biggest suppliers of hot dogs to the populace. In 2023, Costco food courts altogether sold just about 200 million hot dog and soft drink combo meals, significantly more than the 163 million sold during the previous year. Those numbers tower over the sales figures for places more commonly thought to be champion hot dog sellers. The 7-Eleven chain moves about 100 million each year, while all 30 Major League Baseball venues combined sell just around 22 million hot dogs each season.

The Costco food court and its high volume hot dog operation keeps rolling along all day and everyday by keeping employee involvement in the process as low as possible. They serve up hot dogs on buns and it's up to the customer to apply toppings from self-serve stations. All the most common and popular hot dog condiments stand out in the open, ready for use, including ketchup, pickle relish, and mustard. But if hot dog eaters want something a bit more, they have to ask a worker.

Diced onions are often enjoyed on hot dogs, and Costco knows this — they keep a stash of that topping, individually portioned in paper cups, behind the counter and under refrigeration. During widespread COVID-19 regulations, Costco removed that option from the self-service areas entirely, but eventually brought back onions on a special-request-only basis. Another COVID-19-era departure, sauerkraut, remains unavailable at the food court.

Costco's food court maintains consistency and reliability by offering primarily the same items around the country, for the most part. But along with tried-and-true fast food items like hot dogs and pepperoni pizza, customers of Costco might encounter regional specialties and local favorites if they venture outside of the U.S.

Poutine is distinctly Canadian, and it's so commonplace that it can even be found at some Costco food courts there. Canadian stores offer a standard build of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. French Costcos serve hot ham and cheese croissants (with mustard), the traditionally Italian version of ice cream called gelato can be consumed at a Costco store in Iceland, and customers can order a baked potato with everything from baked beans to cheese to tuna at U.K. Costcos. Japan and Taiwan stores have sold a bulgogi bake, which is like the American-made chicken bake but crafted with Korean-style spicy bulgogi beef.

The best-selling items at the Costco food court have become so entrenched that it's hard for newer items to gain a foothold. Costco often attempts to find snack bar fare that could feasibly be as popular as old standbys, but rarely do the brand-new items work, and they quickly disappear from the food court menu. Hamburgers appeared on the food court menu in 2017, with a Shake Shack-inspired sandwich built around an organic beef patty, special sauce, and fresh lettuce and tomato. It wasn't all that popular, and it was phased out of Costcos by early 2020. 

First tested out at a store outside Seattle in early 2023, a Costco roast beef sandwich gained a lot of attention during its months-long, chain-wide availability period. But that might have been because it cost too much for what it promised. With thin sliced meat, vegetables, and condiments stacked high on a ciabatta-style bread roll, the Roast Beef Sandwich listed at $9.99 — which served one person and cost the same as a full-size Costco food court pizza. By February 2024, a year after its quiet introduction, Costco discontinued the Roast Beef Sandwich.

In an attempt to provide healthier, more plant-based options in response to perceived customer demand, Costco brought out an açaí berry salad in 2019. It consisted of a vegan-friendly sorbet along with banana chips, granola, and various berries, including the highly-touted acai. The $5 item lasted only about a year at the food court.

The Costco food court always has a few sweet options on offer, including ice cream, smoothies, and for many years, the twisted churro. In 2023 and 2024, the long-term favorite began to disappear from Costco food courts around the country, and its dessert spot on the menu was given away to a new, gigantic double chocolate chunk cookie. 

The long, tubular, Mexican cuisine-inspired cinnamon doughnut (with dipping sauce) may no longer be available hot and ready to eat at most of Costco's snack bars, but it didn't drift very far away. Costco food courts never made the churros fresh in house, instead outsourcing its churro production to Hola! Churros, formerly known as Tio Pepe's. Customers who miss the twisted churro can heat up some at home: A very similar product is available a few feet away from the food court in Costco's frozen food section, and at other large supermarket chains, too. 

Along with familiar and near universally popular options like sundaes, pizza, and hot dogs, Costco offers a curious entree found nowhere else because it's a proprietary creation of the company's food court. For just a few bucks, store members can feast on something called a chicken bake. Like a combination of a Hot Pocket and a pot pie, it looks like an extra-large, cheese-coated breadstick, and it's stuffed with chicken chunks and a creamy sauce. They're not as weird or exotic as they may seem at first glance, waiting there under a heat lamp in a serving tray, because Costco food court employees make them with ingredients they'd otherwise have laying around in the kitchen.

The chicken bake is freshly made from scratch each day, at each Costco store. It starts with a ball of the same dough used to make the pizza, which is rolled out and stuffed with the chicken from Costco's prodigious poultry operation, along with the secret, tangy ingredient. The sauce is made up primarily of Caesar salad dressing. Used for the food court's chicken Caesar salad, it takes on a new flavor dimension when heated inside of a bread pocket and mixed with chicken.

The menu at the Costco food court is extremely simple — its basic, familiar, comforting foods that appeal to a wide range of people. That isn't to say it all can't be altered or hacked. There are enough variables available at the Costco food court that most anything can be tweaked or transformed into new and inventive concoctions. Please note that while Costco does have a "secret menu," it's all user-generated. To make these and other food court-derived treats, assembly by the customer is required.

For example, ice cream floats aren't technically on the menu at Costco, but the food court does sell soft-serve ice cream and a variety of sodas through a self-serve fountain. To make a float, order a vanilla ice cream and a soda cup, and combine with root beer or Pepsi. One Costco food court hack good all summer long: an ice cream sandwich. In 2024, Costco introduced giant chocolate chip cookies. Those make excellent "bread" when slathered in soft ice cream.

In 2024, TikTok spread a viral trend of the pizza-wrapped hot dog. It's simple to make: Buy a hot dog, get rid of the bun, and wrap that sausage in a thin, floppy slice of Costco pizza.

It's famously a members-only operation, but there are ways to shop at Costco without a membership card. It varies greatly by location, but this might include the food court. Some outlets don't require customers who are there just to buy hot dogs, pizza, and the rest of those items to have a paid membership or store-issued identification card. Historically, Costco stores in warmer climates placed food court outside the warehouse proper, providing an outdoors dining experience. 

Because nobody has to go through a guarded entrance to get there, this allowed the general public to access the low-cost food court foodstuffs. It was up to other Costcos, on a store-by-store, or manager-by-manager basis, to determine if non-Costco cardholders could enter the premises to get to the food court, similar to the way that pharmacy or eye-care centers must be made available to anyone. However, by 2024, Costco's corporate division launched plans to close the loopholes and adopt a singular rule for the entire company regarding the food court — only dues-paying, up-to-date Costco members could dine there.

One of the most consistent things to be found at the Costco food court is a line. There's generally a long queue at the one or two cash registers to place orders for snacks, combos, and pizza, and then another of people who have already paid that are waiting for their food to arrive. This can all be an ordeal, and not a pleasant one after spending a long while shopping through the rest of the Costco warehouse. But there are a couple of not very well known methods by which one can eliminate or greatly reduce all that food court line time.

Many Costco food courts now feature self-service digital ordering kiosks. Outfitted with touchscreen monitors, they can be used to quickly put in an order to the kitchen. Customers pay for their order right there at the kiosk and can bypass the input-and-pay registers completely and proceed to the waiting area. It's also a little-publicized fact that Costco members can place their food court orders at the regular store checkout stations in some locations. When paying for a huge shopping cart stacked full of merchandise, one can ask to add food court items to that bill, and pay for it all in one financial transaction. Then, they simply head to the waiting area of the food court.

The whole idea behind Costco is value, be it the rock-bottom price-per-unit of buying merchandise in large quantities, or grabbing a couple of items at the food court on the way out. Virtually everything on offer at the on-premises fast food stand is priced extremely low, from the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo, to a huge slice of pizza for just under two dollars. Those prices are so low that Costco management just can't go any lower. It's designed to be a way to cheaply feed customers and keep them in the store for a little bit longer.

The same can be said of its relative function with Costco employees. The on-site lunch counter prevents employees from venturing outside the store, and grabbing a meal there returns some of their paycheck right back to the place that gave it to them. The food court menu items' prices are so attractively low to workers already that Costco doesn't feel the need to provide an employee discount. Warehouse employees don't get any discount on merchandise or food court items, but they do get a free, top-tier "Executive" membership as an employment perk, which does pay back dividends each year.

Probably the most famous thing about the Costco food court is how all a customer needs is a dollar and fifty cents to purchase a very large, quarter-pound hot dog and a 20 ounce soft drink with free refills. That $1.50 price tag was locked down in the mid-1980s, and it's a persistent and seemingly unbreakable Costco promise that has survived decades of inflation intact. According to 425 Business, company co-founder Jim Sinegal once told cost-conscious Costco CEO Craig Jelinek of the combo's low price, "If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out."

Costco's number crunchers did find a way to keep that hot dog and drink costing $1.50 for so long. At first, Hebrew National made the meaty part of the hot dogs, and that supplier did so until 2009, when the rising cost of food nearly pushed Costco to raise the price. Instead, Costco cut costs by opting to make the wieners itself. It built hot dog factories in Los Angeles and Chicago, producing the necessary product for its food courts under its in-house Kirkland Signature brand.