Costco

When you’re the only game in town, you can be off your game and still get by. Over the years my ratings for this place have gone from five stars to three to one.
Sorry, but this has been a long time back sliding. While many of the team there are still giving excellent customer service, the place is going downhill. If there was a viable option closer, I’d be going there.
First, upon entering this week, a very fit employee with dark skin (don’t know how else to describe him), was walking backwards out the front door and almost into my cart. I tried to avoid him, then he eventually turned around and instead of saying ‘excuse me’, smirked and moved my cart as he kept going. Wish i saw his name tag because I’d call him out here.
Check-​out has become a poop-​show as well. Cashiers are having side conversations about the gossip in the store that, while interesting, I shouldn’t be hearing.
In addition to that, I’m consistently told they can’t provide boxes because ‘they’re busy right now’… wish that was something I could tell my bosses too!
It’s still a great deal on gas though!

Love shopping here. Great samples (only on early weekdays). Great selection, friendly staff, and close to my house. I always grab a hot dog at the snack bar. That place makes for a good people watching spot too. The best is sitting outside at closing and watching people try to run in after its too late. Good with returns and back up their products. I enjoy the Kirkland brands.

COSTCO OPTICAL DEPARTMENT
When a person is exceptional at their job it shows in the way they treat the customer and it shines with the honesty of loving what they do.
Walking into Costco to pick out a pair of new glasses was not high on my list. In the past it has been problematic for me to find a pair that is not too heavy, not too tight, is aligned properly and the list goes on. This makes me feel like the princess and the pea. Ugh.
So when my number got called and the Manager started to help me I knew something was different right away. He was not rushing me to pick out a pair and leave… weird. Each pair I picked he would ask more questions to get an idea of what I needed. Catching on to this I started to tell him the million minute idiosyncrasies that bother me about my glasses and a strange thing happened… he listened and made adjustments according to my needs… still weird. Every time I tried to rush through he would patiently explain why I needed trifocals instead of bifocals or progressives and why I needed a full frame instead of a partial frame. I learned quite a bit about how my glasses work and he spent over an hour helping me. I’m actually looking forward to picking up my glasses when they are ready! A welcome change!
Picked up my glasses today and the biggest difference with the trifocals is I can see far away as well. Getting into the car I noticed right away that I could see the GPS screen and the MPH screen, whoa! Everywhere I looked I noticed something I could not see before. Trifocals are magnificent!
This is now my go to place for glasses!

This Costco is huge!
I would certainly come back here, especially if I was a student because it’s so close to the University.
They are very good at their inside demos for products, it’s entertaining to watch. Come if you want to buy in bulk!

Love this Costco! It’s not as busy as the Friars one… Or at least I try to go on the less busier times, like Tuesday’s an hour before closing… it’s also a little out of the way…
Food court is outside, plenty of parking and if it gets full you can park in the back too. During peak hours it’ll get pretty packed but that’s like any other Costco.
Lots of selection… Carts are humongous and hard to maneuver in between people. Some things you should buy at Costco: frozen seafood, rotisserie chicken, veggies, water, alcohol, toilet paper etc… Wines… Sometimes you find better deals at Vons, the buy 6 get 10% off, like apothetic red.
If you have a family to feed, Costco is great but if you’re like me, no family, try to piggyback off someone’s Costco card!

I originally visited this location to get my eyes examined because I wasn’t a costco member at that point. The optical department has a great deal on eye exam for around $ 79 (used to be $ 69) and each costco optical department has different prices. I became a member and would frequent this location for all my unnecessary needs.
Parking can be hectic as any costco park can be, but there’s plenty of parking spaces if you’re will to walk a little. This location also has the gas station.
Food court has some of the best pizza slices I’ve had.

I love Costco in general but this one has a few more negatives than normal — always busy, tight parking lot, tight aisles where you can hardly maneuver those large carts, and there’s senior citizens everywhere so it can slow down the overall flow.
I still love those free samples at almost every corner.

Costco is my go to for cheap gas. This location is easily my most frequent place to stop for gas. Their location between downtown and UTC off I-​5 is great. It makes for a manageable detour on many of my trips around town. They often run a half dollar cheaper than other gas stations in the area and that makes a big enough difference to warrant a little extra effort. Lines can get long at the pumps but they tend to move fairly quickly.
The store itself is one of the older buildings I have seen for Costco. It looks like a warehouse which is probably appropriate for a warehouse club. Its parking lot suffers from overuse like most Costco locations. Inside, the personnel are first class.

Parking is like the craziest here and it can get super duper busy on the weekends. Let’s not talk about the gas line…

I tried to find someone who could help me with SLR cameras for a whole hour! Nobody could tell me anything or find someone who could. All I wanted was the price of a camera because there was no price tag on the one that I wanted to buy. I already made my decision for that model. Just wanted to know the price first. At some point I gave up, got some groceries, wanted to pay and they told me «only American Express or check!» What the hell? I left a whole card of groceries and the SLR camera there and left. Who the heck pays with a check at any store? How did I pay last time? How do they make money? What is their business model? How difficult is it to figure out the price of one of their products? Fun Fact: apparently you can pay for the membership with any credit card. Oh, why the hell do I have a membership at this store?

I love costco, this is like adult Disney world for shopping. Samples, cheap food, many Organic options, they keep improving and I love it

This Costco looks like a warehouse/​barn from the outside. The food court is outside, and there’s plenty of seating (just sucks when the wind is acting up and you can’t eat inside). The parking lot is a zoo… it could be a bit larger in my opinion.
Nonetheless, it’s Costco, which means affordable prices, buying in bulk, and free samples! I love buying my meats, cliff bars, and the pre-​made meatloaf/​mashed potatoes and salmon platters (great for college students who can’t cook all the time like me) here. They have a nice layout inside, everything is organized, and the lines move quickly.

Costco, land of cheap food and bulk items, oh how I love thee!
Ever since I was little, Costco has never failed to disappoint my needs.
Good, cheap, filling food? Check. (Where else could you get a polish hot dog and soda combo for only $ 1.50!!!)
Numerous, diverse try-​outs? Check.
Clean bathrooms? Check.
Eye candy with their long aisles and aisles of various products? CHECK.
CHEAP GAS? Only if you have membership, but its guaranteed to be cheaper than anywhere else! So. Check!
The lines are consistently long, but it just shows you how popular and reputable this place is. They move pretty quickly, in my opinion!
Something new I noticed about Costco that I fully support: I noticed they started putting up calorie counts of the items in their food court. Though some of the items are outrageously high in caloric value (I’m looking at you +4k calorie full size Costco pizza!!), its the right move to make for the sake of the customers. While we eat, at least we can be aware of our sinning.
If you are in the food court, I recommend the Chicken Bake, the Hot Dog, the Berry Smoothie, the Combo Pizza, and the Vanilla Frozen Yogurt. They are everything with a cherry on top.

I don’t shop at this Costco very often but when I do make sure to get in Glenn C’s line to check out. He is always so pleasant, remembers people and chats them up and always has a funny joke to tell. I don’t think there’s another cashier in all the Costco’s that measure up to that guy. He’s an asset to your team!
I also like the pizza and gelato!

Costco has great deals and endless supply of fresh foods but you have to brace yourself for the chaos of large crowds. It’s crazy how there is always a crowd at Costco whether it’s morning, evening, weekday, or weekend.
Costco is a one stop shop for all your household needs (food, electronics, toiletries, clothing, medications, flowers, etc.). But keep in mind, most items are sold in bulk. To keep your energy up while you shop, they have food samples to try all around the warehouse. If you are patient enough to wait in line, you can get crazy cheap gas (only regular and premium) next to the parking lot. After you blow through your money buying items, don’t forget to stop by the food court where you can grab delicious food for a mere few bucks! My favorites are the pizza, churro, and hot dog/​drink.
NOTE: you must have a Costco membership to get in and purchase items.

Oh my! This be the mother of all CostCo stores… as long as a football field and half as wide… just chock full of all the lovely things one gets at CostCo. I have never seen a CostCo store with such variety! It is huge! Should you be in the San Diego area and an aficionado of CostCo stores, you deserve to treat yourself to a most unusual store! I was also pleased to find the check-​out lines were not that bad at all. I am comparing this CostCo to all the others I have been at: Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and Rohnert Park. This was a very memorable CostCo store.

I heard for a while that this Costco sells poke so one day I called them just to make sure they had some and sure enough, they did. I ventured off to this Costco. I hardly go to this Costco because there are about three Costcos that I am much closer too. I have been to this Costco before when I lived in Serra Mesa but didn’t care too much for this location.
This Costco is a smaller warehouse than the ones that I am used to. They sell pretty much everything that other Costcos do but I don’t really like how small this warehouse is. This makes the space in between isles much smaller to get through with your carts.
The good thing about this Costco is that they sell poke. I don’t have to go to a restaurant to get this. Only bad thing is that I didn’t think it was that great. I bought the fresh ahi spicy poke that sold for $ 16.99/lb. I also ordered another poke (it was tuna) that sold for about the same. The spicy poke was much better than the regular one but it had too much skin and fat that I had to spit it out because it was too tough.
Another nice thing about this Costco is that they sell items at their food court that they don’t sell at other Costcos like gelato and chili. I had the chili and it was pretty good and filling for the price. Reminded me of Wendy’s chili but with much more flavor and much more thicker.
I don’t think I’d venture out of my way to come here again. I’m over my poke fix. I think I’ll go to a restaurant that sells poke.

Costco is THE BEST. Love this store for almost everything!
The good: huge selection of everything at amazing prices. I come here looking for one or two items and end up buying 20+ things. Electronics, books, clothing, alcohol, food, flowers, cosmetics, prescriptions, gasoline — Costco sells it all!
Note that many of the items are sold in bulk (like toilet paper, food, etc)
My favorite part of the shopping experience is sampling the food. Costco regularly has 8 – 10 sample stations where you can sample good items before buying. Today I tried delicious coconut coffee, oatmeal with dried blueberries, spinach artichoke dip, and kalamata olives. Nom nom.
The bad: can get crowded. Parking lot can be a zoo and checkout lines can be long. Come at low traffic times to avoid this. The Costco staff members are amazingly friendly and efficient. Can help you find items and get you checked out in a flash.
Overall love this place! Highly recommend to any bulk buyers ;-)

Great selection and prices just like any other Costco but probably one of the most confusing layouts and horrendous parking lots of any that I have visited. Seriously, it’s parking lot pandemonium here.
However, once you tough it out through the dynamically changing labyrinth of parking spaces and people who don’t know how to drive, you’ll enter a Costco that has tons of good and wares that will soon cause you to forget about the fiasco outside.
The layout here is a little different than what I expect and I found myself wandering a bit but they still had their great deli meats, produce, booze and beer, clothing and all the other great little things that make Costco your one stop shop for all things food, booze, and other supplies. The signature food court can’t be forgotten either for your cheap eats. I just picked up some wool socks and some Rice Cake Rolls but easily could have walked out with more.
The big attraction here is that they sell gasoline, although I’m not a huge fan of waiting forever for it.
Would I find myself coming to this locations over others? No, no, no, but at least it has a home here in the area for those people that are residents of the area. If I find myself back here, an occasional visit will surely follow.

The price is right, but the service is all wrong.
Had a certain supervisor helping a cashier that had no interest in helping find boxes to make it easier to carry my purchases into my house.
Normal associates, especially in the meat section, are usually pretty good.
Snack bar is usually super slow, but you get what you pay for.

I love Costco and all the deals it offers. Great place to buy bulk meat, fruit, veggies and alcohol. The gift options during the holidays are amazing. You can find anything from Starbucks mug gift sets to special holiday alcoholic eggnog. My pet peeves are as follows: terrible to get in and out of, not enough parking, and always crowded with long lines even on week days. I NEVER EVER go here on a weekend or just after 5pm on a weekday. Expect to spend a long time finding a place to park and then standing in line with your cart. Do go on a weekday morning if you want less wait time.

Both years I’ve traveled to San Diego/​La Jolla for vacation, the Costco in San Diego on Morena Blvd. has been really useful despite it’s smaller size.
Competitive prices for gas, the usual goods one will find at Costco elsewhere, discounted AMC movie tickets to use at the SD Fashion Mall and as Michelle T. pointed out, Costco has gelato!!!
The gelato isn’t the best quality, but at $ 1.50 for 3 scoops in a huge waffle cone, I opted for a Neapolitan style serving of Strawberry, Chocolate and Stracciatella (vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips). If you don’t have a Costco membership, you can still purchase gelato or other food items from Costco’s food court.
After being spendy on vacation in San Diego, it’s nice to get a cheap and icy sweet treat at Costco after having some cheap eat San Diego style truck tacos (review to come for the taco truck in the south part of San Diego).

The weekends here are crowded! Especially for gas. Definitely hard to find a spot close to the entrance you may have to wait for someone to pull out and take their spot.
INK REFILLS: My first time using costco ink refills. Look up which ink cartridges they can refill online first before taking yours in to the photo center. They promise it in 1hr or you can come back later to get it. I chose to shop around, I came back to the photo center around 5min early and my ink cartridge was already filled and tested. Might have been early because there weren’t that many people waiting before me.
I came home and tested my refilled ink cartridge (black, have yet to try color), my hp printer ink levels don’t recognize the new cartridge so the ink levels still say low. HOWEVER, it does print fine despite not recognizing the refilled ink cartridge.
I’ll see how the refilled ink cartridge works as I print.

Gotta love Costco. It’s very rare that I come to this location, but like other reviewers mentioned, this one’s a bit vintage. The people who end up here are arriving with intent, or got lost and found it down the road.
I first discovered it when it was the only location that still carried a purse that I had seen at a previous location.
The gas station and parking lot is weird and tight. I was actually surprised they even had a gas station.
They have a lot of items that others don’t which is cool. In particular I really like their dried fruit and nut aisle. Some exports like dark chocolate covered Philippine mangos too.
I’ve never been to the food court, but based on the reviews, I’ve clearly missed the main attraction… the froyo. Maybe during my next visit… next year.

This review is for the Costco tire center, since I couldn’t find a page specifically for that. I have to say that the experience was not so good. I came here to get tires replaced and it was all starting off well. There was a line for the service, which is understandable on a busy day. The guy that helped us was very friendly and knowledgeable about the tires in stock and what the best ones would be for the car. He didn’t even try to push us to buy a specific tire, which was great.
The problem with this was afterward. I was told that it would take 2 hours for the service to be done, so I went and shopped around inside Costco. It took me only an hour to shop, so I went to the tire center just to wait. As I was sitting there, the guy that helped me before said that my car was actually almost ready. Right after he said this, he went to lunch. So I waited, expecting them to be done in like 15 minutes, based on what he said.
As I waited, there was no person at the front desk to answer the phone or greet and help customers. Three people came in, waited at the desk, and then left after being frustrated that nobody came to help. The phone continuously was ringing about a customer in the store that was to arrive to have their tires serviced, yet nobody came to answer until finally, someone paged them to answer the phone. Then, another guy came in saying that the first employee wasn’t supposed to take lunch yet and proceeded to frantically make up for all the work that was being neglected.
All this, and my car ended up still taking the full two hours, so I don’t know why the guy told me my car was almost ready. When my car was finally done, I heard them pull it out front, but then I waited for someone to let me know it was ready, and nobody said anything. I finally just went out there and waited next to my car. The guy handed me my keys after he noticed me standing there, with no words exchanged.
When I got into my car, I found it a mess inside, with kleenex all over the floor and all the contents of the glove box also on the floor. Let me also say that the box of kleenex was my personal property and nobody said that the workers could use it. They prob have plenty of paper towels and stuff in their shop, but they chose to use my kleenex to wipe down some yellow greasy looking residue. I just found this unacceptable, I hold Costco to a high standard and this tire center was very unprofessional. Blatant disregard for their customers and disrespect of property.

Sol Price opened this very location on Morena Blvd as «Price Club», after being unceremoniously dumped by FedMart. (Remember them?) Little did he know back then, what a colossus his company would become. He chose this location for one reason: It was cheap! Out of the way, hard to get to, in an industrial zone. He converted the existing warehouses and storage facilities into the very first Price Club.
Now, of course, most San Diegans know that Price Club was bought out by Costco. Costco added parking (which was already inadequate for the amount of volume Price Club was doing), and their famous gas pumps which generate their infamous lines.
But this Costco occasionally has a few items that other locations don’t. It’s sort of a test site for new items. As well it should be, being the progenitor of all the local Costcos.
I like this location, since I never really know what interesting new products will be on display, and yes, I had the red/​white/​blue Price Club card.
Oh, and I might add, the food court is one of the better ones of the local Costcos. Unilocalers mention that the food court now takes credit cards. Why would you need one? The food is incredibly cheap there, and quantities are, well, Costco-​sized. Inside the store, I believe members are limited to using cash, check or AmEx.
I revisit this location every few months, both out of a sense of nostalgia, and also to see if any new interesting items are on the shelves.
The place has plenty of history, and plenty of future. Not only a member, I’m a fan.

Funny how the three Costco Stores we frequent are so different. We also go to La Mesa and Kearny Mesa quite a bit. (see other reviews)
I will only list the pros and cons of this store:
Cons:
Almost always very crowded
Horrible Parking in narrow spaces
Obnoxious aggressive drivers
Awkward location from the 52 or 5 Freeways, exit either Regents Road off the 52 or Balboa Ave. off the 5
Pros:
Very cool building. An old aircraft factory I’ve been told
They have items no other Costco has
Great selection of Beer
A nice Food Court for a Costco
This store should be visited when least crowded. I am not sure when the OFF hours are here, but do try to avoid late afternoons and weekends.

If this Costco were like all the others, I would have taken away a star for mediocracy. But there are a few things this Costco has that others usually do not, or has but only one of the things I am about to list.
1)Gelato in the food court
2)surprisingly good local beer selection not found at other Costco’s in the SD area
3)ACCEPTS CREDIT CARDS IN FOOD COURT (recently within this calendar year I feel)
Even though all Costco’s aim to be identical as not to skimp on service or overshadow other locations at times, these three semi-​unique traits does make this Costco my warehouse shopping of choice.

Ok. Free samples are a plus :-)