Like any good Seattleite, I love Costco. It’s the great hometown success story and the only corporation that seems to have any moral backbone—something it demonstrates by, among other things, keeping its hot dog prices fixed firmly in 1987. But recently I got the creeping feeling that I might not love all of my Costco children warehouses equally.
One store might sell South Asian specialties like kulfi, atta, and mini-papadum chips (love you, Woodinville) while another stocks combo boxes of five different types of individually packaged Flamin’ Hot flavored snacks (bless you, Lynnwood Business Center, for showing me these existed). Yet another might not have anything quite that interesting to offer (sigh, Shoreline). At some locations you can start with a calm hot dog meal at the outdoor food court (hello, Kirkland and Issaquah!) and others you end every trip playing Frogger across a dark parking lot while dragging an overloaded flatbed cart (looking at you again, Shoreline)…