Costco Wholesale

Reviews 5

MA

Maikeru Go

While the experience at most Costcos is nearly uniformly good (a testimant to the companys solid policies and good relationships with their employees) each location is slightly different in clientele, stock selection, and features. Firstly, this Costco is one of a couple in the area that has a gas station—the prices are often the best for Premium fuel (a must for high compression engines that lack equipment for the allowance of lower fuel grades). The lines are pretty short during weekdays mid-day, but become very long after 6PM. Secondly, this Costco has a clientele that is decidedly Desi and East Asian, so you can sometimes get products that are culturally specific during certain times of the year (eg. Moon Cakes and almond cookies). It seems small, but its a nice touch. However, this Costco seems to not stock quite the same variety and quantity of wines and spirits as the Mountain View location (which seems to have a larger section of the warehouse devoted to it overall). Thirdly, their food court sits outside with outdoor seating. This is only a concern during particularly hot/cold/wet days as it makes getting the casual pizza or churro i bit more unusual. Fourthly, the lot that the warehouse sits on is on a bit of an incline and thus the entrance is well elevated above the parking lot. There are stairs and a ramp (roughly 10 feet of elevation change), but its worth noting that Ive never seen someone in a non-motorized wheelchair make it up the ramp without someone pushing them. Fifthly, the parking lot is chaotic! Always try to enter the lot where you think that youll park. If you dont, youll need to deal with pedestrians claiming their right of way without regard for their lives or the lives of their lives ones, cars occasionally going around someone waiting for a space and thus blocking the person pulling out of the space, and cars sometimes driving on the left side of the aisles. Sixthly, when the warehouse is getting close to closing the workers all shout it (starting about 30 minutes or so before closing). Ive never experienced this manner of clearing the store, but then again Ive noticed that folks at this location tend to want to overstay (eg. in no hurry to get to the cashier lines when theres 2 minutes left). Anyway, like any Costco its going to be good—it just has its location unique quirks.

---

DA

David W.

First, you cant beat their hotdog lunch menu (under $2 dollars for the meal), and unlimited drink refills, via their outdoor food court. And plus, thats "IF" you dont mind the artificial preservatives, nitrates, BHT, BHA, MSG, synthetic chemicals, coloring, and flavor enhancer(s) in their lunch menus. Second, their food court is jammed packed even during regular lunch hours (M-F) and weekends. So please plan your lunch ahead of time, or simply get there no later than 11:45am. The lines and waiting can get very frustrating around 12 noon or 15 minutes later -- just letting you know, you will be competing for parking and with those nearby tech workers, at those hour(s). Third, their gasoline is usually much cheaper, around .65 to nearly .95 cents cheaper per gallon, than Shell and Chevrons. You can literally save around $10 bucks, by filling-up at Costco (but requires membership of course). And the best part, youre entitled to free air, at their tire centers (no membership needed for air). Just ask any tire technician to show you how to operate the computerized air pump. Simply adjust your desired PSI level (push + or - ) and insert the air-hose into your tire valve. The computer will automatically detect your PSI and knows when to stop pumping air. Fourth, the actual shopping via the inside is a "mayhem" experience during the weekends, and starting Friday afternoons; especially the parking issues. Avoid if possible, or do your shopping on Mondays thru Thursday afternoons. The earlier the better, on any given day that is. Fifth, if you are a very conservative-class American, xenophobic, and / or not accustomed to diversity or mixed cultures .... you may find this location a bit uncomfortable to your standards. You will seldom-ly find traditional American speaking customer(s) at this location. Not including the employees, that is. A lot of the customer(s) here are foreign nationals, rude, unprofessional, and hesitant to speak American. And sixth, by no means this posting was meant to be offensive. Please dont take it personally. This posting was strictly based on actual observations, and my 6 years of shopping here.

---

SH

Shyam Bansal

The Costco gasoline station is also about 25 to 60 cents per gallon cheaper than other gas stations around. It is the cheapest gas station around. Good time to go to Costco gas station is before 10am, say at 9:40am in mornings before the Costco wholesale opens, or in the weekend evening after 8:30pm after Costco wholesale closes; that way you avoid the Costco gasoline pump rush, ie car lineup. Also weekend nights are also rush. I went there at 9:40am in the morning after the office rush hour was over and before Costco wholesale opens, and got to the fuel pump instantly The Costco Sunnyvale car tyre air pump service is the best, as they have a new electronic tyre filler that extends very easily to your car and fills air automatically and emits beep sound after tyre is full. No more tedious manual tyre air filler at ARCO or Shell, etc. After filling up your gas talk, just turn to the left to the Costco Tire/Auto center, and on the rightmost side of the Tire/Auto center is the air pump. Also best is having the Costco items delivered home for free using Google Shopping Express. Especially ordering stuff like Indian basmati rice etc which is very cheap here. Great place for lower prices especially for food items. $9.95 for an 18 inch pizza sounds great too. However, laptops are much cheaper if you search for laptops and buy them online. Other items like mountain high yogurt and honey are much cheaper here than other supermarkets.

---

J

J Wu

I went this morning to line up for gasoline, and i think there are things you can do to improve the experience a lot. i know the long lines are unavoidable, but the inefficiency is frustrating.  First the gas attendants dont seem to serve any real function other than wait for people to ask questions. Could it be possible for them to proactively direct drivers to which line they should go to, so the lines may move faster?  Today there was a large gas truck block 2 of the fueling stations. Or so I thought. But it turns out the 2 fueling stations were available, but cant be seen if youre in line. So while I was waiting a bunch of people who came after me drove past me and went to those 2. I was really upset, I wasted a bunch of time in a line when I couldve gotten in and out sooner. And the two gas attendants were just sitting there giggling to themselves and chatting.  The whole process sucks, people are just cutting each other off and driving aggressively. So basically if you try to behave civilized someone will take advantage and rush in front of you. the whole system is set up to make everyone behave worse.

---

AD

Adrienne Tegreeny

Parking lot is a nightmare. The store itself is crowded and filled with dazed or always rushed shoppers. You will probably get hit by a cart at least once. No matter how early you arrive there will already be a fight for parking and crazy drivers going much faster than necessary in a parking lot. The employees are not as knowledgeable or friendly as other Costcos I have been to. We learned the hard way that employees will make up answers to your question if they dont actually know the truth. Its okay to admit you dont know! It was quite a shock my first time here after I moved because the Costco on Coleman has always been a good experience. I am tempted to just drive farther and go back to that one. The food court is as good as other locations. They are busy but efficient. If you preorder your food at the register inside the store make sure to double check that the cashier got your order right.

---

---