Our crew
The four of us
Two parents with jobs, two kids with homework, and one thing we all agree on: the $1.50 hot dog is one of the last great deals in America. All four of us go.
Rich
Dad · keeps the ledgerHad the idea, registered the domains before telling anyone, keeps the books honest, and drives. Posts the numbers as they land.
Jes
Mom · design and socialNamed the whole thing, decides how all of it looks, and runs everything that goes out on social.
Carter
Son · older brotherWorking through Taste of the Court. No faces in the photos, so he and his brother made it a bit.
Mathew
Son · younger brotherKeeps hoping the dirt bike will hit the gold standard in Costco Casino. Sundaes are his menu item of choice.
We’ve been Costco members without a break since 2007. The $1.50 lunch is the reason this exists. It was $3.00 for the two of us, every time. Two children later it’s $6.00, which is exactly what the receipt from New Britain says, nineteen years, a wedding, and two boys after we started paying it.
Almost nothing else we bought in 2007 costs the same today. That’s really the whole idea: a small price, held long enough, turns into something people love.
The story Costco tells is a hot dog cart outside a San Diego warehouse in 1984, Hebrew National franks, and $1.50 with a soda the year after. It hasn’t moved since. So, thank you to Jim Sinegal, who co-founded Costco and, when a successor raised the idea of charging more, is said to have answered with a threat we’re not going to print on a page our children read. The clean half of it is the part that matters anyway: figure it out. And they did. It has been $1.50 ever since.
And to whoever is behind the counter when we walk in. Every board in this project was read off a wall somebody else keeps stocked. We photograph the food; they make it.
The only faces here are drawn ones
The drawings are the only pictures of their faces anywhere on here. These portraits are illustrations. We answer the AI question on the FAQ, including which parts of this site are and are not. In the photographs they cover them with whatever the aisle has, a frying pan, a storage bin, a pillow, a steam iron. It started as the rule and became a bit.
They’re kids. They also get a permanent veto on any picture of themselves, no reason required, no expiration, and it applies to photos already published.
The Signature
The next Costco, in your inbox.
One email per Costco. The receipt, what was on the menu board, what it cost, and the strangest thing we found in the aisles. Free, and it stops the moment you say so.