Is There a Free Lunch at Costco?
Thursday March 5, 2009
Have you ever taken advantage of a "free lunch" at Costco?
Costco and the other warehouse stores frequently offer free samples of food items at various stations around the store. Each sample by itself is not very filling, but if you hit all or most of the stations you have essentially received the proverbial free lunch. Obviously, the store management hopes that you will like something enough to buy it, but there is no requirement to do so.
Have you ever made a free lunch or dinner of free in-store samples? Please let us know your favorite place for free food samples by posting a comment below.
Comments
You bet we have. It was not our intention to eat the sample until we were full however, by the time we left, the food court did not look so appetizing.
We get all our paper towels, toilet paper, etc. at Costco and we usually go around lunch time on a Saturday and we do make a meal of the free samples. If we really like something we sampled and it is a good deal we buy it.
I was Christmas shopping once and made my way around twice for samples. I avoided paying for lunch that day. Be careful, however, some samples are loaded with bad-for-you calories.
My favorite grocery store has free samples everyday, goodies like chicken salad on small squares of pita, hummus on crackers, cut-up veggies and fruit with appropriate dips. I love to go when they have just been put out since I don’t like to think about how many unsanitary hands have been there before me!
I like free but the crowds around it are FAR not worth it and people are so focused on that bite of food that they don’t bother to get out of the way!!!
Whole Foods, Green Hills, TN
Trader Joe’s always has samples. It’s nice to try something new before buying it. They usually have one beverage and at least one food item. Sometimes they serve up simple recipes using their products, like the black bean-sweet potato soup I had there recently. Yum.
I used to demo at Costco. I’ve seen people come around and around looking for the free lunch that they think they are entitled to. The topper was when I provided breaks and saw 1 man take 5 samples of item A, 5 samples of item B, 7 of item C, 1 of item D and throw a hissy fit when I refused to refill the tray until he left. Our rule is three is the max.