Costco Raises Food Court Prices

[Alpha8472]

They raised the prices on drinks and the chicken bake. The bake is about 1 dollar more and drinks are up by 10 cents.

[babs]

They did something to the chicken bake. It's not as good as it was pre-pandemic. It's like they cheapened it and now raised the price.

[mbz321]

They did something to the chicken bake. It's not as good as it was pre-pandemic. It's like they cheapened it and now raised the price.

The Chicken Bake used to be made from scratch using the same dough as the pizza, in-house (incredibly labor-intensive). It was cut from the menu around the start of Covid, but came back an item that comes in pre-made and frozen (if I recall, the only thing that gets done before it goes in the oven is it gets sprinkled with cheese). At $2.99, even in its frozen form, it was still okay. For $3.99, I don't think it is worth it.

[storewanderer]

I am not entirely sure why the soda price of all prices was increased. Maybe it is due to laws that ban certain straw types, cup types, etc. so in some locations cost has gone up on those items to get "compliant" stuff. I wonder at what point would it be cheaper for them to just hand out a can of soda.

At this point who would buy just a soda at 0.69 when the soda plus hot dog is 1.50?

Then again Sam's has been closer to $1 on soda for a long time...

[HCal]

Costco has resisted inflation better than other companies for a few months now, but at some point they are going to have to cave and raise some prices somewhere. These small increases (10 cents on soda, for example) will hardly be noticeable. They can't touch the price of the hot dog/soda combo (or Sinegal will kill someone) so they have to raise prices on other things.

Fountain soda is cheap. The syrup and paper cup probably cost 10-15 cents, so it's almost pure profit. Fast food and restaurants make a large portion of their profits on soda.

[storewanderer]

Costco has resisted inflation better than other companies for a few months now, but at some point they are going to have to cave and raise some prices somewhere. These small increases (10 cents on soda, for example) will hardly be noticeable. They can't touch the price of the hot dog/soda combo (or Sinegal will kill someone) so they have to raise prices on other things.

Fountain soda is cheap. The syrup and paper cup probably cost 10-15 cents, so it's almost pure profit. Fast food and restaurants make a large portion of their profits on soda.

Costco isn't the only retailer resisting inflation. WinCo is resisting it quite well also. Sam's Club seems to be increasing a lot of prices though...

In a few months though I think we may see deflation on a lot of general merchandise as demand falls like a rock. I do expect food prices to keep rising though. Costco is pretty smart and they may realize absorbing some cost increases now to keep sales flowing is a good bet to not get stuck with a ton of excess inventory in a few months. Costco lost a lot of money on delayed clothing shipments a couple seasons ago due to the port situation and had to blow out of season clothing out for next to nothing. I think they are trying to avoid such a situation from happening across other categories that are already not as high margin as clothing to begin with.

That is why I am surprised they increased the fountain drink at all. Almost like they price increase the drink only, to help subsidize the hot dog combo.

[Brian Lutz]

Ever since they switched the food court from Coke to Pepsi Costco has been kind of weird about fountain drinks anyway. The food courts at all the Costcos near here each have two soda fountains with eight spigots each, yet only offer a total of five choices. You have Pepsi on 4 different spots, Diet Pepsi on another 4, Mountain Dew on 4 more, and 2 each of MUG Root Beer and diet lemonade. At the Costco in Seattle they now only have only diet sodas in the fountain because Seattle has a $0.0175 per ounce excise tax on non-diet sodas and they would have to add $0.35 in tax to each cup if they didn't (this comes out to over $5 in added tax on a case of soda.) Back when they offered Coke products the selection available was much wider.

[Romr123]

I'd bet that Pepsi would permit them to limit the soft drink selections (where Coke required a fuller line). Costco's all about managing choice and simplification.

[mbz321]

Ever since they switched the food court from Coke to Pepsi Costco has been kind of weird about fountain drinks anyway. The food courts at all the Costcos near here each have two soda fountains with eight spigots each, yet only offer a total of five choices. You have Pepsi on 4 different spots, Diet Pepsi on another 4, Mountain Dew on 4 more, and 2 each of MUG Root Beer and diet lemonade. At the Costco in Seattle they now only have only diet sodas in the fountain because Seattle has a $0.0175 per ounce excise tax on non-diet sodas and they would have to add $0.35 in tax to each cup if they didn't (this comes out to over $5 in added tax on a case of soda.) Back when they offered Coke products the selection available was much wider.

Damn, your Costco has MUG? Mine has four dispensers for Mountain Dew (I worked in the Food Court back in the day...we went through Dew the least) along with pepsi/Diet Pepsi, Brisk Raspberry, and Light lemonade. People often asked for Sierra Mist and I could never understand why we couldn't devote at least one nozzle to it. (I was at a Costco in Florida not too long ago and instead of Brisk Raspberry they had Brisk Sweet Tea).

[Super S]

Ever since they switched the food court from Coke to Pepsi Costco has been kind of weird about fountain drinks anyway. The food courts at all the Costcos near here each have two soda fountains with eight spigots each, yet only offer a total of five choices. You have Pepsi on 4 different spots, Diet Pepsi on another 4, Mountain Dew on 4 more, and 2 each of MUG Root Beer and diet lemonade. At the Costco in Seattle they now only have only diet sodas in the fountain because Seattle has a $0.0175 per ounce excise tax on non-diet sodas and they would have to add $0.35 in tax to each cup if they didn't (this comes out to over $5 in added tax on a case of soda.) Back when they offered Coke products the selection available was much wider.

Damn, your Costco has MUG? Mine has four dispensers for Mountain Dew (I worked in the Food Court back in the day...we went through Dew the least) along with pepsi/Diet Pepsi, Brisk Raspberry, and Light lemonade. People often asked for Sierra Mist and I could never understand why we couldn't devote at least one nozzle to it. (I was at a Costco in Florida not too long ago and instead of Brisk Raspberry they had Brisk Sweet Tea).

The nearest Costco locations to me are about an hour drive. I sometimes would get a hot dog to eat on the way home, but stopped when they switched to those awful paper straws at every location nearby, which start disintegrating after about 20 minutes. At this point I don't really care what kind of pop they have.