Hello my loyal followers and supporters! I apologize for the 3 month hiatus but we have been doing a ton of traveling and I just haven’t had the time to sit down and focus on writing about our adventures. In the past 3 months we have been to London-Athens-Corinth-Pune-Sri Lanka-Kathmandu-Medford, OR and Kansas City, MO. We just got back to India about 2 weeks ago. Don’t worry I will post about all of our adventures but need to start with a quick blog to warm up the old keyboard (or actually it is a new one and it works so much better!).
Most people when they go to London love to see the tourist sites. Buckingham Palace. Windsor Castle. The Tower of London. Tower Bridge. The London Eye. Sure, all magnificent and all fun to go to. However after being in India for two months post Christmas there was only one real place I had to go as we waited for the boys to land in London….
That is right. There is only a handful of Costco’s in the UK and Heathrow airport happens to be near one of them. So rather than tour we decided to check out COSTCO UK!
As we walked past the full blown olive trees they were selling outside, we gave our card to the front door greeter. They actually scan cards in the UK to get in to Costco, no free loaders or fake cards! The warehouse as you might expect was in an industrial area and the warehouse had the very similar layout like we all are used to back in the US. You walk in and instantly you have giant cheap TVs blaring and some sort of cheap clothing or personal hygiene items littering the left side of the walkway. And then there is always some random food item like protein bars? Man, what do I really need now…a pair of shorts, some underarm deodorant, and protein bars. Is that ever on anyone’s list? It must be.
So as I was saying the layout of the store was very familiar.
So the first area we went to was the bakery and I have to say this bakery had far more variety than the bagels, muffins, pies, and huge bread rolls we see back in the US. They had donuts (prices are all in GBP of course):
Hot cross buns and whatever the hell a nut cluster is:
Then we moved in to the meat section which did have some familiar products but this section was much smaller than what we see back in the US. This staple of course was there:
The meat portions they had were almost more similar to what you would find at a grocery store back in the US versus the huge packages of 16lbs of ground turkey. Then of course came the vegetables section. Well for those that have been to England before you will know that veggies aren’t really that popular. It was much smaller than our produce sections. Far less fruit and berries and very few green options. Gotta stick to meat, potatoes and bread products at this Costco.
Some of you Costco connoisseurs will remember this product which was canceled a few years ago in the US:
I wonder why they stopped selling them. Maybe because the ones in the food court are only 2GBP more and are already cooked and have more cheese?
Then we moved to the drinks area and of course they sold liquor. Unlike the 1.75ml bottles you find in the US, the largest I saw sold here was 1L. They had a decent collection but what really caught my eye was this Talisker Scotch. Look at the price of that bottle! You would pay 3-4x that for the same bottle in India or maybe 2.5x in the US. What a deal! I was tempted to buy one but our suitcases were filled already!
Next came the frozen section. I took some pictures of some really cool products that I would buy if we had them back in the US. Of course, very stereotypical English food but they looked good! Instead of Mexican or Italian night you could have British Pub night!
That beef wellington looks fantastic!
They did not have an entire row dedicated to coffee and its complements. But there were rows of crackers, cooking oils, spices, sauces, etc. Just British versions.
There was no pharmacy at the Costco but they did have a much smaller vitamin and supplement section than we are used to.
The second to the last thing we hit was the Costco Optical Center. For those of you that don’t know they usually have some really high end brands here at very decent prices. Of course any time we go my wife finds a pair that “She always dreamed of” and “has never seen on such a huge discount”. “I have never seen a pair of these below $500 so by paying $250 we are actually saving money?”. Umm no, you are still spending $250 on a pair of glasses that will either a) be broken by our toddler or b) get lost at the bottom of the Lake of the Ozarks after an afternoon of adult beverages. But I am a kind man and I love my wife so all of the sudden it became the perfect birthday present. She gets to use Italian luxury glasses and I don’t have to stress about a birthday gift. And we get 2% back!
The final stop, well you all know the answer here, was a must for any shopper who drops hundreds of dollar per Costco outing…..
The food court!! You can see the prices and the items above. Yes the dog is 1.50 GBP which equates to about $2 so there is an arbitrage gap for those who wish to load up on food court items and sell them 10 hours later in London. I actually thought about doing this but my beloved Gucci glassed wife said it would make people sick. She’s right God love her.
The one thing that they do not show here which I thought was a really good idea was they sold coffee. I think it was like 50 pence for a cup of black coffee. I actually wish our Costco’s would do that and I am surprised they do not. Most people in the food court were not eating my favorite and coveted dogs…the more popular items were the chicken sandwich and whole pizzas.
The hot dog tasted the exact same as it does in the US except the buns are different. Still good though and still hit the spot. The only condiments offered were ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. No relish and no chopped onions. Sorry gotta go to the US for that. Man I wish they still served the sauerkraut. I now have to bring my dogs home to get that experience. Costco dogs are my favorite dog, second only to Portillo’s Chicago Dogs. Tenley had a slice of cheese and it tasted the exact same as the US. Greasy and cheesy!
They do not have self checkout in this Costco and they only had like 10 lanes. It was incredibly crowded to check out and at the food court. I would say the lines were at least 8-10 carts deep for every check lane. So yes you will save some money but you better bring a podcast because you will wait. And unlike the US where you always see some old guy just buying a carton of grapes, here the carts were all filled to the brim.
We went to a foreign Costco, ate at the food court, bought one item in the store, and still couldn’t get out of there for less than $200. I am telling you, invest in this company! It was a great experience and I hope I get to see more of this wonderful chain of consumerism gone wild stores!
It was off to get the boys and begin our traveling adventure. Stay tuned for the next update I promise this one won’t take 3 months!
Richey's Travel Adventures 