I shop Costco weekly and I’m a big fan, I’ll go to my local butcher a couple times a month.
Price - Definitely Costco is the big winner.
Selection - Costco has most of the cuts of meat I use, but my butcher has everything you can imagine.
Quality - It’s a tie, both are excellent.
Hot women customers - Both have a very attractive clientele, but the butcher slightly edges Costco. (I was reminded of that this morning.)
Customer service - Costco is good, but my butcher is family owned and run, they go way out of their way to make you happy.
I’d shop at my butcher more but his prices are high, like much higher. The guy checking out in front of me had 6 steaks, some salmon, a 12 pack of beer, a couple bottles of wine, a couple dips from the deli counter and it was over $200.
I use to go to a local butcher but the difference was the quality of the product. I paid more but the quality was outstanding. If I could another local butcher like that, I would go back.
He had amazing connections was the key. He use to buy all the meat for MGM casinos. As such he for the quality reserved for high end places. You paid more but it was worth every dollar.
My guy only sells local grass fed prime beef, tenderloin filets are $39 a pound and the difference between his and Costco’s prime filet is only slightly better, but Costco’s costs $15 less a pound. I’ll buy beef from my butcher when it’s on sale and a few cuts Costco doesn’t carry like hanger steaks, tri tip and one of my favorites, picanah. I buy my skirt steak from a Mexican grocery store.
Edited to add… I don’t know why anyone would buy grocery store choice steak, they’re not very good.
During the pandemic, we started buying meat from Omaha Steaks because the store selections were not that great… We still are and have yet to be disappointed.
As long as we are on the subject of beef, my wife has heard that Sam’s Club has very good Korean-style beef not available at Cosoco. Up to now we have been a sole Costco family, but we are taking Sam’s up on their promotion of a $45 credit with a $45 membership to see just how they are.
However it turns out, I don’t see us quitting Costco.
Are you talking about plain raw beef or marinated Korean meat? My local Costco sells Korean bulgogi BBQ beef, it’s pretty good but a little too sweet. I had to use quite a bit of siracha to cut the sweetness.
I belong to both Sams and Costco and there really is no good reason as a single guy to do so. I joined Costco when I went to Hawaii for 2 weeks, the savings on gas and food alone surely paid for that first year membership fee.
Plain raw beef. She is thinking of rib meat which works well in preparing Korean dishes.
I have seen the pre-made marinated Korean beef at Costco too. If my wife wants that, she will go to a local Korean market and buy it. I will guarantee you that will be a lot more authentic than anything at Costco.
I think they use short ribs or thin sliced ribeye, my Costco has both. I’ve used flanken (thin sliced cross cut beef ribs)for Filipino barbecue or I’ll just make a teriyaki sauce to marinate them in.
True. I’ve made my own marinade and used thin sliced beef I got at H Mart, I forget what cut it was, an employee helped pick it and a few other ingredients out.
Am I the only person in this forum who does not have a costco account. I tried it for one year but it wasn’t worth it for me to wait on its long lines.
Super easy to smoke or braise. I make a killer short rib ragu with pasta, just brown in a heavy pot, deglaze with red wine, add onion, carrots, garlic, a half little can of tomato paste and a quart or so of beef broth. Cover and simmer on low or in the oven at 275 for a few hours and your done. Remove the meat and reduce the sauce by almost half and toss with Pappardelle pasta. One of my favorite cold weather meals.
KCFlyer has said that he does not have a Costco membership because the quantities they sell are too large for him as a single-person household.
From my perspective, I think Costco does a pretty good job of keeping the lines moving and how the staff are good at ringing up all of the prices quickly and efficiently.
I mentioned earlier that once before my wife wanted to go through the self check-out line, and it ended up taking us a lot more time to do it ourselves than what it would have taken cashiers to do. I told her then that we would only go through self check-out if we only had a few items. Last week we were at Costco with a larger amount and she wanted to go through self check-out I said no, and the regular check-out worked fine.
More recently, I would say the same of them for the gas lines. Since Costco gas is a lot cheaper, the lines can be really long. However, I have noted that at several Costcos they have set aside part of the parking lot to be dedicated to the gas lines, and they have people directing cars at the entrance to the pumps too. I am pretty impressed with how they have handled this.
Well, we went to the closest Sam’s to us today and they didn’t have any of the rib meat my wife was looking for. More than one person has told her how wonderful it is, so maybe they will have it some other time. We have one year to try them.
Overall, I think I prefer Costco, though I did note some positives about Sam’s. Sam’s sells smaller portions of the bakery items, and they also have a wider variety of both bakery items and pre-prepared meals. The gas prices at the Sam’s and nearest Costco were identical.
On the down side, they don’t have nearly as many of their own branded items as Costco has with its Kirkland brand. And, their food court is not nearly as good, both in terms of selection and speed of service.
On that latter point, I noted that throughout the entire store. At Costco you can see the employees working at a quick pace to keep things moving, whereas there was not that same feeling at Sam’s. At the Costco food court the line may be long, but you can still see it moving and you can also see the employees husting behind the counter. At Sam’s the employees were working at a leisurely pace, and the line moved more slowly. Ditto for the customer service counter.
And, for an obvious difference, Costco is closed on Memorial Day. Sam’s was open for shorter hours. The store was not very crowded either, though I don’t know if that was due to Memorial Day or is the norm.
Granted this was only our first time there, and we will give them a few more tries while we can. Right now, if I had to predict, we will be going to Costco alone after the year has passed.
Talking about bulgogi, there is a local butcher shop/sandwich place here called Local Pig that has an off menu daily special.
Last week they had a bulgogi and kimchi sandwich that was to die for!!
