Costco’s beloved $1.50 hot dog and drink combo may be going away in the not-too-distant future.
Ever since 1985, Costco has kept the cost of a soda and hot dog, including unlimited refills on the soda, at the insanely low price of $1.50.
It’s one of the flagship items in Costco’s food court and a big reason a lot of people come into the Costco stores. It’s also one of the cheapest meals you can get here in the super expensive San Francisco Bay Area.
This isn’t an example of shrinkflation either. The hot dog and soda are both substantial food items.
How can Costco sell a hot dog for so little money? That’s been the subject of a lot of speculation. Some people think that Costco does it by leveraging incredible scale, selling millions of hot dogs every year.
Others speculate that Costco actually loses money on each hot dog and soda they sell and uses it as a “loss leader” to get people in the door. A dollar and fifty cents for a hot dog that gets you to the store might cause you to buy a $500 television once you’re there!
Whatever the reasoning, Costco’s longtime CEO previously swore that the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo would never go away.
With his impending retirement, though, the fate of this beloved treat is less certain.
In a concerning interview with Bloomberg, Costco’s CEO told a reporter that the combo would stay for a while but didn’t guarantee that his successor would keep it.
That’s not the glowing guarantee that Costco fans were looking for. It seems like Costco’s hot dog combo may not be long for this world.
That will be sad news for the weirdly devoted fan base that has grown up around this item. There’s even an entire website devoted to Costco’s hot dog.
The message? Get into Costco as soon as you can for the combo. Or, you know, grab a cheap thing of hot dogs and make them at home. It’s not like it’s rocket science.
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