A Costco food court's new menu item is raising eyebrows for its price

Dave9 said:
You don't seem to understand math. No, $10 is more than the hourly wage for the average unskilled worker, but it's beside the point.
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You are aware the minimum wage in Ohio is now $10.10 an hour, right? And where this sandwich is being sold has a minimum wage of nearly $16 an hour?

And guessing if its anything like here, there aren't a lot of jobs only paying minimum wage at the moment - why would you when the market is paying well above that?
 
PimTac said:
On a side note, one of the founders, Sol Price started up a similar model of store in the Philippines called S&R. It’s quite popular and I’ve been to one. The food court is almost a carbon copy of Costco right down to the New York pizza. They are not quite the size of the stores you will see here but they do booming business especially with the foreign expat community which is quite large there.
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Surprisingly the Costco stores in China have the same cafeteria and food as here as well. I don't know why anyone there would eat these substandard foods but they do sell them as part of their brand.
 
Pablo said:
Inability to account for locale would make for a cranky traveler.
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I'm well aware that food costs differ by region but in this case the locale is Costco. It's in their name, "cost", and it's also the theme of this topic, how much it costs. It's making news that this happened.


I expect a restaurant to try to maximize profit because that's their primary purpose, selling cooked food to eat there. There is not that same expectation with Costco, where customers are expecting nearer break-even prices, where most entrees cost $5 or less and $10 will get you an entire 18" pizza... approximately 6X more food.


We could argue about how good that pizza is, but you could pick anything they offer and find a restaurant that does that other thing better too, at a Higher Cost. It's a cold sandwich, not even toasted bread and too much of it.
 
MNgopher said:
You are aware the minimum wage in Ohio is now $10.10 an hour, right? And where this sandwich is being sold has a minimum wage of nearly $16 an hour?

And guessing if its anything like here, there aren't a lot of jobs only paying minimum wage at the moment - why would you when the market is paying well above that?
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Federal minimum wage isn't. Besides that's splitting hairs, people don't go to Costco food court to pay that much. How is that even rational, to try to equate a price with budgeting hours labor for it? We could rationalize the price of anything by stating "oh it's only 5 hr of labor to buy it". That doesn't change that the product may still be too expensive for what it is.

Do you think people earning near minimum wage will be buying a lot of these $10 Costco sandwiches? I bet not. They're far more likely to get a couple hot dogs or slices of pizza, $3-$4. Even a bit above minimum wage, that's an exception to how their budget would normally stretch to cover everything. The sandwich costs at least 2X more than practically any other meal option at Costco. Do people earning $16 an hour typically pay over twice the average price for a car, home, clothing, or related to this topic, food itself? The numbers wouldn't add up.
 
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Minimum wage people are not Costco's demographic. The $60 membership fee precludes their patronage for the most part. I like Costco, but for a lot of items, it's not the place I would choose to go to save money.
 
Vil_Riker said:
Surprisingly the Costco stores in China have the same cafeteria and food as here as well. I don't know why anyone there would eat these substandard foods but they do sell them as part of their brand.
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There is a growing appetite for foods from all over. Places that sell pizza, barbecue and other foreign favorites are busy especially with the younger generations. The chains do very well there.
 
PimTac said:
There is a growing appetite for foods from all over. Places that sell pizza, barbecue and other foreign favorites are busy especially with the younger generations. The chains do very well there.
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You should see the crazy ideas they have about pizza or burgers.

Surprisingly, McDonalds there has quite a nice menu. Greasy and unhealthy, but quite nice.
 
We need an isometric map of North America showing lines (certain dollar amounts) within which said amounts are "nothing".

IRONY: Even well before 2019, Americans would cry over a 5 cent fuel price hike.
 
MNgopher said:
And noting that by news stories this is at ONE Costco in Washington, where the cost of living is by most measures 15% or more higher than here, suddenly $9.99 seems well, normal.
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A couple of weeks back, a friend and I grabbed a couple of sandwiches and iced tea at a local restaurant in Berkeley. He had a turkey club and I had grilled chicken. I didn't see the bill as he picked up the tab, but he told me the total came to almost $50.00.

I went to Burger King recently and got a Whopper with fries and it came to something more than $10.00.

$10.00 for a roast beef sandwich doesn't sound too expensive to me. The next time I go to Costco I might try it out.
 
Kira said:
We need an isometric map of North America showing lines (certain dollar amounts) within which said amounts are "nothing".

IRONY: Even well before 2019, Americans would cry over a 5 cent fuel price hike.
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I still do. A dollar saved is a dollar I do not have to make.
 
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