10 Items We Wish Costco Would Add To Their Food Court Menu

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The food court is always a highlight of the hungry shopper's Costco trip. From its inflation-immune $1.50 hot dog combo to the Costco Guys' favorite double chocolate chunk cookie, there's something kind of amazing on the Costco food court menu for practically any mood or occasion. As great as the Costco food court may be, however, its menu is pretty minimalist. Hot dogs, cookies, pizza, the chicken bake, a salad with chicken, and soft serve ice cream make up its backbone. A couple other items are typically also offered, with various sandwiches and sweet frozen drinks, for instance, rotating on and off the menu at regular intervals.

Since the Costco food court's limited number of classics, at least, are all relatively high-quality, it's hard not to wish for some more options, ideally maintaining Costco's signature balance of low price and surprisingly solid taste. The following items that we wish Costco could add to its food court menu were determined using my extensive Costco experience — I'm both a Costco regular in my personal life, and cover Costco-related topics for Mashed on a regular basis. Based on that expertise, then, these are the 10 items Costco really ought to add to its food court menu.

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One of the biggest changes that came to Costco in 2025 was its food courts replacing Pepsi soda fountains with Coca-Cola fountains. While plenty of Costco members found that to be an improvement, self-serve fountain drinks and bottles of water are still the only true beverages available from Costco's food courts. Lacking from the beverage lineup is something suitable for an early morning shopping trip — in other words, Costco food courts should start serving coffee.

For clarification's sake, Costco has sold coffee drinks at the food court before, but those have all been frozen coffee slushies, implicitly containing an indulgent dessert's worth of sugar. A regular old cup of coffee at the food court would allow shoppers access to a caffeine boost without the dietary cost of all that sugar. Costco already sells some pretty solid budget coffee beans under its Kirkland Signature brand, so its food courts would simply have to introduce coffee machines that could brew the beans Costco already sells. Especially during the early-morning shopping hour exclusive to Executive Costco members, access to a classic styrofoam cup of quick-service coffee would make an A.M. Costco run that much more satisfying.

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Starting in 2024, Costco rolled out different kinds of sandwiches at a pretty rapid clip, testing multiple permutations of roast beef, chicken, turkey, and various toppings within just a couple of years. It's fair to say customers didn't really take to any of them to nearly the same degree as the food court's tried-and-true classics. If Costco wants to get serious about sandwiches at the food court, it should start serving breakfast sandwiches.

The biggest difference between Costco's recent lineup of middling sandwiches and a hypothetical breakfast sandwich would be its bread. Costco already sells a quality croissant in the bakery department, handily superior to the ciabatta used on its previous food court sandwiches. Enlisting one of those croissants for a breakfast sandwich could be as simple as heating it up and adding, say, an egg patty, American cheese, and sausage or bacon. There is, in fact, already a frozen Costco breakfast sandwich that shoppers swear tastes exactly like Starbucks, so Costco is no stranger to the breakfast sandwich. With the benefit of a warm croissant and the relatively higher degree of freshness provided by the food court, Costco could level up its already solid breakfast sandwich game.

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In May of 2026, Costco started selling trays of five chicken strips with a ramekin of dipping sauce at select stateside Costcos. Prior to their introduction, chicken strips would have led a list of items Costco needed to add to food court menus, so their arrival was welcome. Of note is the fact that most Costco food courts didn't previously serve any fried fare. It is, of course, possible to pre-fry chicken strips and leave it to the food courts to reheat them in-store. Even if Costco is most likely doing that rather than introducing in-store deep fryers, the chain figured out how to adequately serve fried chicken to food court customers all the same. Next, Costco should use that same technology for a fried chicken sandwich.

A chicken sandwich need not be fancy to satisfy, a fact to which the McDonald's McChicken is testament. However, when chicken strips are repurposed in chicken sandwiches, the results are often subpar. So, Costco would at least have to adapt its chicken strips' shape to a bespoke chicken patty. Otherwise, the accoutrements from past Costco food court sandwiches could round out its ingredients — even if Costco's ciabatta bread is uninspiring, as a delivery system for a juicy, crispy chicken patty, it would get the job done. Simply put, fried chicken is almost always more viscerally satisfying than deli meat, and Costco could take advantage of that fact by adding a classic, Chick-fil-A-style chicken sandwich to its food court menu.

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Once upon a time, Costco food court customers could choose between the classic, all-beef frank and a Polish sausage. For quite some time since the removal of the Polish sausage, the all-beef frank has been the sole hot dog option at the food court. While the Costco hot dog is a classic, it's not an option for those who don't eat meat, or even those who just avoid beef. In fact, the only vegetarian entree option at the food court is a slice of cheese pizza. Introducing a veggie dog would be a perfect way to adapt the hot dog for which the food court is so well-known to a broader customer base.

Getting the recipe right for its core component would be the sole hurdle to a food court veggie dog, since Costco has its approach to buns and hot dog toppings down. That said, it's safe to say a solid veggie dog would probably not retain the classic hot dog combo's $1.50 price point — the floor for a good meat substitute is quite a bit lower than straight-up beef. A higher price, however, would be worth the access an increased number of customers would have to a Costco staple.

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Famously, Motor City Pizza Co. produces the best frozen pizza you can buy at Costco. As its name makes clear, Motor City Pizza Co. makes its pizzas Detroit style, which is a little thicker than normal, but not pie-like in the manner of Chicago deep dish. The Costco food court, meanwhile, serves a pretty great budget version of a faux-New York slice. Based on Costco's association with Detroit-style pizza and the quality of the existing food court pizza, a Detroit-style pizza might just be a perfect fit for the Costco food court.

Detroit-style pizza transcended its status as a regional curiosity and became well-known across the U.S. through the first half of the 2020s. Whereas there might have been a time Costco customers would have found Detroit-style pizza a bit strange, it's fair to say more people than ever before are familiar with Detroit style's whole deal. To take things one step further, Costco customers famously miss the combo pizza, which featured pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, bell peppers, onions, and olives as toppings. Presumably the classic combo slice is now cost-prohibitive. But, if there were a new, fancier style of pizza for which a higher price point was implicitly justified, that could be just the venue for the combo pizza's return. At the very least, Costco cheese pizza with a thicker Detroit crust would be a solid move in and of itself.

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The May 2026 introduction of chicken tenders at U.S. Costcos theoretically opens the door to plenty of other kinds of fried foods at Costco food courts. The most obvious next step would be French fries, but those were actually available at a handful of stateside Costcos until 2025. With that said, if Costco already has a food court-ready fry recipe and a formula for fried chicken tenders, it stands to reason a solid take on fish and chips might not be too far off.

On one hand, a year-round fish and chips option would make sense for Costco, given that it's a sort of finger food, ideal for the quick eats/takeout vibe of the food court. On the other hand, it might be fun for Costco to participate in the yearly rollout of fried fish at fast food restaurants around Lent, catering to Catholics giving up non-seafood meats on Fridays. International Costcos have even sold fish and chips, so a domestic take on a food court-worthy variation on this classic — whether during Lent or not — could be as simple as bringing a similar formula to the U.S.

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Fried mozzarella played a major role in the story of Chili's major resurgence. Specifically, videos of Chili's customers pulling apart their fried mozzarella — a cheese pull, in other words — captivated social media users, creating a viral phenomenon. Viral or not, the mozzarella stick is just the sort of greasy, quintessentially American, fast food that Costco seems to execute so well at its food court.

Easing the hypothetical rollout of Costco mozzarella sticks is the fact that Costco already makes a proprietary marinara sauce, used not just on its pizza but also once part of a a calzone that hit Costco food courts in 2025. As I found out when I ranked eight chain mozzarella sticks for Mashed, a good marinara sauce for dipping can make or break an order of mozzarella sticks. With its marinara recipe down, Costco is already halfway toward a solid food court mozzarella stick. Coupled with the general popularity of Costco on social media, a good cheese pull might even be enough to go viral like Chili's.

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More often than not, a meal at the Costco food court means putting dietary concerns aside and indulging in something excessively sweet or salty. As of 2026, the rotisserie chicken chef salad is the only Costco food court menu item that's maybe-kinda-sorta nutritious. But, even that's not great for you, between salty chicken, bacon, cheddar, and a creamy dressing. Offering a classic chicken, veggies, and rice bowl would be one easy way Costco could provide a proper entree option for health-minded food court customers.

The one new food Costco would have to figure out for a chicken, veggies, and rice bowl would be rice. Of course, rice is plentiful at fast food restaurants, from the likes of Panda Express to Yoshinoya, and Costco could utilize a similar approach to those chains. The meat could be the very same chicken on the rotisserie chicken chef salad, whereas its veggies could cross over with some of what was included in the combo calzone — bell peppers and onions, maybe. For more flavor, Costco could perhaps offer a sauce on the side, leaving its relative level of healthfulness up to each customer.

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Costco has increasingly become a reliable source for all sorts of Asian foods. Among the best Asian foods to buy at Costco based on customer reviews are Korean dumplings, instant ramen, Taiwanese pineapple cakes, Indian madras lentils, and more. At the food court, Costco could cater to its Asian food-seeking customer base by adding bubble tea — Taiwanese in origin but popular all over — to its drink selection.

What makes the prospect of Costco food court bubble tea more of a longshot than some other ideas is the fact that U.S. Costco food courts have no existing supply of any of the necessary ingredients. Not only would Costco need to figure out a sweet milk tea and boba pearls, but also cups and straws that could facilitate drinking those boba pearls. That said, Costcos in Australia have offered bubble tea in the past, so stateside warehouses would merely have to turn to one of these overseas counterparts for logistics. More than anything else, having the option to sip on a food court bubble tea during a Costco shopping trip sounds pretty dang nice.

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Between soft serve, double chocolate chunk cookies, and whatever other smoothies or coffee slushies are in-season, there's no shortage of desserts at the Costco food court. If Costco were to add just one more sweet treat to its menu, there's arguably no more suitable dessert than apple pie.

Pies are already a staple of the Costco bakery aisle, with different kinds rotating in and out depending on the time of year. Any type of pie would be welcome at the food court, but apple pie is so quintessentially America, it feels like it should be first in line. At the food court, Costco's already-solid take on a budget apple pie would benefit from coming out a little warmer and fresher. Plus, with vanilla soft serve already in food court kitchens, an option to order a slice à la mode wouldn't require anything more than a spot on the menu. Especially when there's not a lot of straight-up, classic American pies in fast food, a food court apple pie slice would not just play to one of Costco's existing strengths, but also carve out a new niche relative to competing quick-service chains.