As a B.C. Costco cracks down on its food court, is there anywhere truly cheap left to eat?
Restaurant food prices jumped 25% between 2019 and 2023, says Statistics Canada
It's not easy to find an inexpensive meal these days, especially if you're feeding a family and especially if you're on the go.
It could cost you $50 to get four full meals at McDonald's. A KFC family bucket meal costs around $45 before tax. Even four plain hotdogs from a road-side chip truck could cost you upwards of $30.
Family packs at Swiss Chalet start at $39.99. A single burrito from Mucho Burrito is $12.45.
It's tough out there. But for decades, for so many, there's been a thrifty oasis of sorts — tucked in a bulk warehouse, wrapped in foil and served with a fountain drink.
The $1.50 Costco hotdog meal. Despite inflation, the price has held firm since the 1980s, and its been a popular menu item for both card-carrying Costco members and those just there for the food.
So when Vancouver's downtown Costco recently posted signs announcing people will need an active membership card to purchase food from the food court, it sparked a fierce debate online about whether non-members should be able to access those cheap meals.
"Everyone deserves to be able to buy a $1.50 hotdog and drink if they're broke," wrote someone on a Costco Canada subreddit.
"With how expensive everything is, you could always get a cheap quality eat here. Sad for the non-members," wrote someone on X.
Technically, the Costco food court has always been for members only, but the policy hasn't always been strictly enforced. Costco reportedly started cracking down on non-members accessing its food courts in 2020, and made another push last year, but still, some people find ways to get at those cheap dogs without paying the $65 membership fee.
On social media, people post videos of sneaking inside, share tips on pretending to go to the pharmacy to get through the doors and describe high school kids strolling in for inexpensive lunches. Entire families have grabbed a quick dinner on their way to concerts and hockey games.
Employees at the downtown Vancouver Costco recently told CBC Vancouver that this location in particular had been lax with its food court policy because of its location outside the warehouse. The Vancouver is Awesome website notes it's a popular spot for people to grab a quick bite on their way to nearby Rogers Arena or BC Place.
CBC News has contacted Costco Canada for a comment and not yet heard back.
When CBC Vancouver reached out to the local store in June, they were told it's their policy to require membership to buy food from the food court.
'Real challenge of people getting affordable food'
Canada's annual food price report forecasted that in 2025, overall food prices would increase three to five per cent — working out to the average family of four spending $16,833.67 on food in 2025, an increase of up to $801.56 from last year.
Meanwhile, a surge in operating expenses drove a 25 per cent increase in the cost of food purchased from restaurants as of December 2023, compared with December 2019, according to a 2025 Statistics Canada report.
The Costco food court has always been able to keep its prices down because it was designed to get people into the store to buy other items, not as its own profit centre, said William Huggins, an assistant professor of finance and business economics at McMaster University in Hamilton.
But the rising cost of food has been a challenge for it, he added, and now the financial stress in our current economy means we're seeing people going to Costco just to eat the cheap hotdogs or going to Ikea just to eat the cheap meatballs without buying anything else, he said.
"Inadvertently, what happens is we've got corporations making up for deficits in our social programs," Huggins said.
"It tells you how weird things have gotten. That people are like, 'Well, I'm so financially distressed I'm going to go and find the cheapest food I can. A hotdog.'"
From a business point of view, if you're getting a lot more demand from people that you will never convert into customers, you start losing money, Huggins added. In that way, Costco's decision makes sense, he said.
"From a bigger point of view, it goes to show you that there's a real challenge of people getting affordable food."
Eating out like 'normal people'
About one in four Canadians lived in a household facing food insecurity in 2024, according to the University of Toronto's Food Insecurity Policy Research Program.
Meanwhile, the income gap in Canada reached a record high in the first quarter of 2025, according to Statistics Canada data released this month, with the highest-income households benefiting from investments and the lowest-income households seeing declining wages.
Poverty takes a big toll on mental, physical and social health, said Elaine Power, a professor in the school of kinesiology and health studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., who researches issues related to class, food and health.
"Being able to eat out once in a while like 'normal people' is an antidote to deprivation, social isolation and social exclusion," Power said.
"This is important for everyone, but especially for parents who want their kids to be able to fit in and belong, like other kids."
Still, $1.50 hotdog meals aren't really the answer, said Kelleen Wiseman, the academic director of the master of food resource economics program at the University of British Columbia.
Stable incomes, access to healthy foods and the cost of housing are some of the core issues to address with food insecurity, she said.
Wiseman also noted that most Costco stores are in areas that aren't accessible to downtown cores, other than Vancouver, which makes the option of just stopping in to eat "not all that possible."
Fast-food restaurants moving upmarket
A lot of fast-food restaurants have been focusing on moving up into a differentiated product instead of lowering prices — taking steps like adding salads and rice bowls to the menu to chase higher-margin goods, said Huggins.
"They've tried to move upmarket a little bit, which means we need companies to come back in and take those bottom niches of the market."
That said, Costco does currently appear to have that market cornered — if you have a membership.
"I don't know how they're making money on this thing," says a woman taking a bite out of a Costco hotdog in a Facebook video about how to feed a family of six for under $30.
"I'm going to have a party next week. Is it crazy to ask for 20 or so $1.50 hotdogs to go from the food court?" asks someone on a Costco subreddit.
"The price can't be beat and I've never heard anyone say anything bad about them."
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With files from CBC Vancouver