Costco Vs Sam's Club: Who Has The Best Food Court Pizza?

Americans love a deal, and there are no better places to find them than at the big box outlets like Costco and Sam's Club. In addition to selling just about everything under the sun, both stores have endeared themselves in the hearts and stomachs of consumers with their thrifty and accessible food courts.

Though determining which membership is a better value may be a matter of preference, finding value at a big box food court is easy. Yet among the chicken bakes, hot dogs, pretzels, cookies, and ice cream sundaes, the item that often comes to mind when considering these food courts' offerings is the pizza. Quick to prepare, easy to conceive, and oh so filling, food court pizza is an economical hand-held all-in-one meal.

Shoppers would do well to realize that the pizza, along with all the other items in the food court, functions as an ancillary product that gets and keeps them in the store for longer. That strategy has helped one of these two prodigious pizza purveyors become one of the biggest pizza chains in the country. But hey, a deal's a deal, and when the deal's a meal, who really needs to work up an appetite chewing on the logic and data that drives the big box food court concept? Still, you can't blame a person for wondering just which brand makes the better pie. After you've read the following slice by slice comparison, you may just have your answer.

The Costco food court concept got the jump on Sam's Club by virtue of existing first. Originally more a humble stand than a full-on food court, Costco offered hot dog combos for $1.50 dating back to 1984, a year after the first locations opened. From a pizza-centric perspective, however, it was only when it merged with Price Club and introduced its first food court in 1994 were customers introduced to food items like pizza, sandwiches, and salads.

As far as the ingredients that make up the Costco pizza, as well as its price and availability, Costco pizza uses a whopping blend of mozzarella, provolone, and Parmesan cheeses. Costco buys its dough in frozen balls from an outside supplier and the sauce is its own secret recipe. The price is an affordable $1.99 for a slice and $9.95 for a whole pie. Far from making the choice of which pizza to order difficult to make, Costco keeps its pizza selections simple, available only in cheese or pepperoni.

As far as Sam's Club food court history, it really wasn't that far behind Costco, since it was operating with the same eye for capturing sales and obviously did not want to cede gourmet ground to its competitor. That effort involved expanding a menu of quick and delicious menu items that grabbed customers' attention and a debatably more modern system that Sam' Club customers love. Whether this was a copycat mentality or just good ol' food court common sense, pizza naturally fit the bill.

From the get-go, there are notable differences in regards to Sam's Club pizza's ingredients, price, and availability of selections. First off, Sam's Club Cafe pizza ingredients are in house under the Member's Mark brand. The cheese is a low moisture mozzarella. The price is virtually the same as Costco's, with a slice actually coming in one cent lower than Costco. Sam's Club also provides a bit more variety, with its pizza available in cheese, pepperoni, and a four-meat combo, although you can't get its latest trending sensation (imitation crab) as a topping.

The Costco cheese slice has a bubbly crust, indicating a fair amount of moisture in the dough. At first glance, it has a minimally greasy appearance, yet what lies beneath tells a different tale. The grease from the cooked cheese seems to have soaked through the dough to the bottom due to strangely placed holes in the dough. The sauce is hardly detectable, a little odd considering the cheese separates easily from the sauce. While the cheese stands alone, it is clumpy and mealy.

The Sam's Club cornicione (the fancy name for the ring of crust along the outside of a pie) appears to have less moisture, and thus a less bubbly crust. The cheese melts very well into the sauce, which is fairly sweet. The notable grease may be an alternative to traditional moisture missing from the dough, but it is easily removed with the dab of a napkin.

Winner: Sam's Club

The Costco pepperoni slice has modest meat disks that are well cooked to the point of crispy in some places. The pepperoni is a little spars — by itself not a deal breaker, but since this slice appears to have less cheese than the cheese slice, one can't help but feel a little short changed. The sauce does make more of an impression here — sweet with a slight tang and quite pleasant. The slice is less greasy than the cheese, which is also an improvement.

The Sam's Club option contains larger, not too crispy disks that cover the slice better, possibly just due to the fact that they are bigger. Like the Costco slice, a lesser amount of cheese is detectable. As far as the sauce and the dough, they appear to be uniformly in line with what was encountered with the cheese slice. The consistency, regardless of the topping, is certainly a plus.

Winner: Sam's Club

Spoiler alert — Costco doesn't have a combo slice with which to compare, so we're going to have to award a default victory to Sam's Club. And it's a pretty meaty offering featuring pepperoni, sausage, ham, and bacon. All the meats here are well represented, with the possible exception of bacon, but it's hard to say whether it was a matter of not enough there or that it was just cur so small as to be less detectable.

This seems like a good place to mention that variety at both Costco and Sam's Club across the country may vary, and that there may be additional options that are currently available in your region. Additionally, there are pizza options that have been offered in the past that are simply no longer offered, but that's not to say that they will never be made available again at some future time.

Winner (by default): Sam's Club

No spoiler alert needed here if you've been paying attention. By every and any measurable component, Sam's Club is the clear winner. Consider the performance of each individual ingredient — from the desired chewability of straight mozzarella as opposed to a cheese blend, the sweet but not cloying flavor of the sauce, the slightly denser but imminently less greasy crust, to the interaction of the ingredients with each other (Sam's Club's cheese just melted into the sauce better), and the added value of simply having a slightly wider variety of choices, Sam's Club takes the cake — er, pie.

That's not to say that there isn't room for improvement for our victor, or our runner up. One word comes to mind — veggies! How about a mushroom or an onion slice? Would some sliced bell pepper with the pepperoni be a bridge too far? This reviewer certainly doesn't think so.

When evaluating food court pizza from Costco or Sam's Club, it's fair to say that hopes for the winner to be an exemplary specimen needed to be tempered. After all, this isn't wood fired, artisanal fare crafted to Neapolitan standard. It's fast food sold primarily to please customers enough to want to come back, eat again, and ultimately do more shopping. Not exactly a race to the bottom, but certainly an exercise in lowered expectations.

The factors that were considered in this comparison included the visual presentation of both the individual ingredients as well as their inclusion in the final product appearance, the taste and mouth-feel of the ingredients, and the variety of the pizzas made available. Price was noted but, since there was only a one cent difference in cost to the customer between the two, it really was not a relevant factor. However, overall value was considered when evaluating each product's performance.