Dear Costco Food Court

The polish dog, the hand-dipped ice cream bar, the chocolate swirl frozen yogurt… all gone! Costco, here are 7 bad decisions you made in your food court that are costing you loyal customers like me.

And I was loyal. My wife teased me that Costco food court was my favorite restaurant. Your food court is indubitably better than the completion, hence my surprise. Is there new management or are you just getting sloppy?

My go-to order back in the day was your polish dog meal, half of a piece of pizza (my son gladly added the other half to his pile), and your hand dipped ice cream bar with almonds for dessert. Sadly, I can’t order most of these now. (Oh the nostalgia.)

I’ve heard from your employees about your efforts to be more healthy, and many of these are good (Acai bowl—good choice). But not at the cost of your indispensable menu items.

I recall seven recent mistakes you should seriously reconsider.

1. Losing the Polish Hot Dogs
Do you not realize how good your polish dogs were? Seriously. I can count on one hand places with better hot dogs (Portillos, in Chicago… maybe a handful of stadiums). Sure my wife could smell it on my breath 26 hours later, but it was worth every bite. You had something special there. Why did you throw that all away?

2. Replacing the chocolate frozen yogurt swirl
I realize that you only have so much room behind the counter and the introduction of the acai “smoothie” and bowl takes needed space. And yes, I guess you had to keep vanilla because that could be swirled with acai better than chocolate. But do you realize how many women you upset when you wiped chocolate frozen yogurt from your menu? My wife was inconsolable.

3. Eliminating the hand-dipped ice cream bar with almonds
This one is a little too painful to talk about. I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. (Breathe, Jonathan!) This was truly the most delicious ice cream bar anywhere. Häagen-Dazs® has nothing on you. Your combo of premium ice-cream hand-dipped in chocolate with fresh almonds… it was truly amazing. I locked myself in the house for 3 days straight and talked with no one the day you purged it from the menu. It took me weeks before even being able to enter Costco after that day. I’m still not completely over you hand-dipped ice cream bar! You wrecked my soul!

4. Skimping on quality control with your pizza
Your pizza used to be pretty good. It never competed with the great pizzerias, but honestly, it held its own. Nevertheless, a few years ago it took a dive downhill. More bubbles, less cheese, and burnt far too often. It really puts your customers in a position when they have to ask, “Sorry, but do you have another one not blackened and with some actual cheese on it?”

5. Watered down Pepsi
It all happened about the same time. When core items began disappearing and the pizza degenerated, the soda fountain took a hit as well. It’s already slim pickins for any cola drinkers. There’s Pepsi… and that’s it. No root beer, no Dr. Pepper, no Coke… just watered down Pepsi. Sadly, the selection isn’t quite as horrible as the mix. Most the time the mixture is just undrinkable. Really bad stuff. Not even worth the amazing bargain you sell it for. Don’t believe me? Let’s go back to the 80’s and do the Pepsi challenge. In fact, grab a can of actual Pepsi and pour it into one of your cups and then compare that to the unrecognizable sludge coming out of your dispensers. It’s not even a challenge- it will be a sobering revelation. Solve this one quick before all your customers began shopping at Sam’s where everyone can buy a cup right at the checkout isle and fill it with a perfect mix of Coke.

6. Cleanup isle three
And have any of you executives ever wandered over to the food court “dining area” and tried to find a seat? If you’re lucky enough to swoop in on a table as a family is leaving, you have to quickly send someone to the napkin dispenser to cleanup the smeared pizza sauce and diced onions smeared all over the table from three families ago. If Costco’s not going to provide someone to clean tables, maybe you should at least provide a Clorox wipe dispenser so people could give tables a quick once over before eating their cheeseless pizza and drinking their tasteless beverage.

7. Did I mention the hand-dipped ice cream bar?!!
That’s worth mentioning twice.

Costco, you broke my heart. My days of feeding the family for $10 are slowly disappearing.

Please revert back to the way you were… or I might actually have to begin going to an actual restaurant. (My wife will be so excited)