Costco Food Court sells hot dogs, pizza and a short list of other food. A single counter inside each warehouse handles the whole menu. The Hot Dog Combo anchors the board at $1.50, a price that has held for roughly forty years. Costco Food Court requires a membership card to buy any of it.
Costco Food Court runs every counter itself. The Food Court never hands control to a franchisee. Prices stay the same in Alabama or Alaska, since only sales tax moves the final total. Costco Food Court’s own history follows below, from its 1980s start to the $1.50 price nobody has managed to raise.
Costco Food Court History
Costco built a food counter into its warehouse format from the start. Staff the company hires and trains itself run every location. No franchisee owns a single counter, and the same recipes travel from a Seattle warehouse to one in Florida. Co-founder Jim Sinegal set the 1/4 lb Hot Dog Combo at $1.50 in the mid-1980s.
That $1.50 figure never moved. Sinegal later told his successor, Craig Jelinek, to leave it alone rather than raise it. Costco protected the number in 2009, dropping outside supplier Hebrew National and building its own hot dog plants under the Kirkland Signature brand. The Polish dog left the lineup in July 2018.
The food court itself closed for much of 2020. It reopened with a trimmed menu through 2021. Costco began requiring a membership card at the counter in March 2020, then tightened enforcement again in April 2024. Demand has kept climbing regardless: the chain sold more than 245 million Hot Dog Combos in fiscal 2025, a new company record.
Costco Food Court Menus & Details
Two pages carry the detail below: what the counter currently charges for each item, and the off-menu combinations regulars order by describing them at checkout.
Costco Food Court Menu Prices
Hot dogs, pizza slices, salads, desserts and drinks make up the counter, each one carrying its own calorie count. The Costco Food Court Menu Prices page adds the exact figure for every item.
Costco Food Court Secret Menu
Regulars build off-menu combinations, like a root beer float or a cheese-draped hot dog, from items already behind the counter. The Costco Food Court Secret Menu page covers each build and how to order it.