6 Facts About Costco's Famous Food Court Pizza
Alongside its $4.99 rotisserie chicken, $1.50 hot dog combo, and addictive snacks like the restraint-testing peanut butter-filled pretzels, the food court pizza is among the few Costco offerings to rise to true icon status. Members love the pizza—simply topped with either cheese or pepperoni—for its extreme affordability: just $9.95 for a whole 18-inch pie or $1.99 for a slice.
While customers regularly debate whether the pizza is actually good by traditional standards, many agree that it's still tasty and affordable enough to be a worthwhile purchase.
As one fan explained on Reddit last year, "If you factor in the collective categories of taste, price, quickness, convenience, and nostalgia, it ranks pretty high for me."
Despite the fame and popularity of the food court pies, even the most loyal fans may not know all the intriguing details about what goes into making and selling them. We've rounded up six of the most fascinating Costco pizza facts below, so read on for an in-depth look at this popular food court menu item.
Robots apply the pizza sauce
While cooks at other pizzerias may ladle sauce onto dough by hand, Costco uses a special machine to ensure its pies are consistently well-sauced. This gadget, called the "auto saucer," spins the uncooked pizza crust while spouting exactly 10.5 ounces of sauce evenly across the surface.
You might be able to spot one in action at your local Costco food court if you're lucky. Otherwise, many shoppers have managed to capture videos of the auto saucers and share them on social media.
Costco sells a ton of pizzas on Halloween
Costco food courts, like other eateries, tend to get busier at certain times or on certain days. But according to insiders, one of the absolute worst days to stop by Costco for a food court pizza is Halloween.
Several food court employees have reported on Reddit that the October holiday is the busiest day of the year for selling pizzas, while others say Halloween is the second busiest day behind the Super Bowl. Costco shoppers similarly attest that their food courts are "always packed on Halloween."
In 2024, Costco sold more pizzas on Halloween than ever before. CEO Ron Vachris revealed during a December earnings call that the food courts had cranked out a record-breaking 274,000 whole pies—an increase of 21% from the prior year.
Pepperoni is the lower-calorie option
Because Costco's food court pepperoni pizzas come with an extra ingredient—the pepperoni—you might expect them to be higher in calories than the plain cheese pizzas. However, you'd be wrong.
A whole pepperoni pizza clocks in at 3,880 calories, versus 4,260 calories for a whole cheese pizza. Meanwhile, individual pepperoni and cheese slices have 650 and 710 calories, respectively.
The major caloric difference is likely due to how much cheese the food courts pile onto each pie. A pepperoni pizza comes with 14 ounces of cheese, while a cheese pizza comes with a whopping 24 ounces. Fat, sodium, and protein levels are also higher in the cheese pizzas.
Costco is one of the largest "pizza chains"
Costco had 617 warehouses—all with in-store food courts—in operation across the United States as of November 2024. Technically, this makes Costco a bigger "pizza chain" than some of the largest and most successful pizza chains in the country.
Mod Pizza, America's eighth-largest pizza chain by sales last year, ended 2023 with 553 locations, according to the market research firm Technomic's latest Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. Costco, for comparison, had 591 locations in the states at the end of its 2023 fiscal year.
Hungry Howie's, Jet's Pizza, and Round Table Pizza—all of which were also among the 10 largest pizza chains of 2023—ended last year with fewer locations than Costco. The warehouse club plans to continue opening new locations at a rapid pace over the next few years, which will make it even more of a giant in the pizza space.
Slice size depends on the type of pizza
As any Costco-goer surely knows, the food courts sell whole pizzas for $9.95, as well as pizza by the slice for $1.99. Whether you opt for a whole pie or a single piece determines the size of the slices you get.
Food courts typically cut whole pizzas into 12 slices, according to Allrecipes. Meanwhile, pizzas that food courts want to sell by the slice for $1.99 are cut into six giant pieces. To ensure that every slice is as evenly sized as possible, food court workers use a neat metal guide while cutting up the pies.
Arranging the pepperoni is an art form
Costco's food court workers are directed to take great care and attention when assembling pepperoni pizzas. Photos of the retailer's pizza visual guide shared on Reddit show that each pie should receive exactly 60 pepperoni slices arranged in a "4-3-2-1 pattern."
In order to achieve this, food court workers must use pepperoni to create triangles atop the pizza with lines of four slices, three slices, two slices, and then one slice. When cut into six pieces, this ensures each slice of pizza comes with exactly 10 pieces of pepperoni.
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