The Etiquette Rule You Should Follow When Ordering At Costco's Food Court

The food court at Costco can be a bit of a Wild West experience. It's often incredibly busy, the wait times are long, and people leave their full shopping carts all over, blocking the space around the seating areas. Regardless, shoppers make their pit stops there on the regular — it is, after all, the home of Costco's iconic $1.50 hot dog and other delicious menu items that simply hit different after an hour of shopping. That said, if you find yourself in the store near closing time, it's better to skip the food court.

The dining area generally closes at the same time as the store, but it's considered polite etiquette not to order anything around 15 minutes before closing. At that point, the kitchen will have likely already started shutting down and won't be fully equipped to make an order from scratch. Food court employees will leave out some pre-made menu items, though, so if you're seeing something on display that's already prepped, feel free to go for it. Another option is to plan ahead and place a phone order that you can pick up once you're done with shopping — it's the best order-ahead hack to skip the line at Costco food courts during the busier times, too.

Once the food court closes its kitchen and the final shoppers exit the store, the shift doesn't end for the employees. They still have to clean and sanitize all the equipment and food prep surfaces, which can take a very long time. Some closing shifts at Costco's food court can apparently run well past closing time, especially if the employees aren't allowed to start cleaning until the entire store is completely empty. This depends on the management of each individual Costco warehouse — some locations give their employees enough leeway to start closing the kitchen up to 30 minutes before closing time, while others are much stricter and require all menu items to be fully available until the last open minute.

While these rules are up to the managers' discretion, we should still be taking the employees into consideration as customers. By placing orders near the closing time, we're making their job a lot harder, possibly keeping them on the clock longer than they need to be. Some argue this isn't the customer's responsibility and that the problem could be resolved by implementing "the last order" time. But until Costco opts for that, the onus is on the customer to be mindful of what is polite and considerate. At the end of the day, it doesn't cost us anything to be kind to the people who are working hard at making our food.