There's One Piece Of Equipment Costco's Food Court Can't Operate Without
Costco's whole angle is that you can save money while shopping there, even if you've got to pony up for a yearly membership. The savings you'll incur run the gamut from groceries and clothes to tires and gas. One point of instant gratification is its food court, where you can get those famously cheap hot dog combos along with some giant slices of pizza. Just like a fast food restaurant, Costco's food court is known for its consistency — that slice of pizza you get one day is going to taste the same on your next trip, thanks to standardized equipment and cooking procedures.
@insectmilk If you didn't know, this is how Costco puts sauce on pizza. #pizza #sosatisfying #costco
One such piece of equipment is a specific tool used to make the pizza, and it's easily my favorite one: the pizza sauce dispenser. If you've never seen it, it's usually stationed by a glass window (though food court designs can vary). It has a spinning plate on it similar to a record player. An employee puts the pizza dough onto the device, and once it's turned on, the thing dispenses a perfect coil and quantity of sauce that's both uniform and perfectly distributed. Not to mention, it's really hypnotic to watch.
Why the sauce machine makes sense
The dispenser, aside from automating the task for the employee, makes sense for a few other reasons. One, it allows for precise control over each pizza, which means there's little to no food waste when it's done this way, helping bring down costs. Second of all, consistent distribution is more important than you'd think in terms of customer experience and expectation.
Having made a million pizzas (roughly) in one of my past jobs, my human touch with sauce made for a much more handcrafted artisan final product — it also ensured that no two pizzas were exactly alike. I'm sure sauce might not have been perfectly spread on every slice, and since I was ladling the liquid myself, there were probably times I used heaping amounts rather than the standard spoonful, thanks to its viscosity. Does that mean I was a sloppy pizzamaker? Not in the least. But small variances do happen, and with a calibrated sauce machine, you're simply going to get the right amount every time.
Don't get me wrong; this is still very much fast food pizza. I'm not going to extoll it for being anything more than it is. But aside from making the pizzamaker at Costco look like some kind of pizza DJ, that sauce machine is just one of those details that makes those pizzas so regular, down to every last perfectly-cut slice.