Costco Makes a Big Change to Its Food Court Pizza

Costco's food court pizza is one of the retailer's most iconic offerings of all time, so you can count on members taking notice whenever the retailer makes a change that impacts those beloved pies. That was exactly what happened when a Costco location recently switched up how shoppers order and pick up their food court pizzas, according to online reports.

In many Costco warehouses, customers are required to order through digital kiosks at the food courts and then wait for a worker to call out their ticket number once it's complete. But this week, a member took to Reddit to report that their local Costco had ditched the number-calling method for whole pizza orders. Now, customers at that location are required to place their orders as usual and then go stand in a dedicated line to pick up their whole pizza once they're ready.

So, a customer at this location could theoretically order a pizza as soon as they enter Costco, go do their shopping without worrying that they'll miss their number being called, and then wait in line to pick it up on their way out. Alternatively, a customer who wants their pizza as soon as possible can head over to request their pie right away.

"You could (and I watched some people do this) order and then immediately stand in the pickup line," the Redditor wrote.

The shopper didn't specify which warehouse they frequent, but a commenter on the post claimed a San Francisco food court hasn't used the number-calling method for some time. Costco did not immediately respond to our queries about how many warehouses have made the switch, whether more locations will make the same modification in the future, how the process works, and the reasons behind this change.

However, the shift may be an attempt to make food court operations more efficient at the affected locations. Many members have complained about long wait times for whole pizzas and poor communication about the status of their orders. But creating a dedicated line that hands out whole pizzas on a first-come, first-serve basis could hopefully make the process more streamlined and less frustrating for shoppers.

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As one member who's witnessed the new pizza process explained in a comment on the Reddit post: "They don't care about your number or time of ordering. You get served as you get to the front of the line. That is the only thing that matters."

The Costco shopper who started the Reddit thread, however, warned customers that the new pizza pickup process can lose some of its efficiency when a customer opts for a half cheese, half pepperoni pizza (4,080 calories).

"As I watched people grapple with this system, I realized very quickly that you don't ever want to order a half cheese half pepperoni pizza," they wrote. "The system works fine for whole cheese and whole pepperoni, but if you do something less common then the wheels can fall off pretty quickly."

This isn't the only big development revolving around Costco's food court pizzas lately. Last month, a shopper spotted what appeared to be a pizza warming cabinet at their local Costco food court and shared the news on Reddit. The shopper said they believed customers were meant to grab pizzas directly from the cabinet after paying for them, which could completely eliminate those pesky wait times. However, Costco did not respond to our queries for comment at the time on the purpose of the cabinet and whether this change will be expanded to more locations.