Doughboys - Grocery Store Month: Costco with Griffin Newman

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Actor and King of Kranch Griffin Newman (The Tick, Blank Check Podcast) joins the 'boys to talk Disney, New York supermarkets and review Seattle-founded club store Costco. Plus, the debut of Slop Quiz.Sources for this week's intro:https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/The_Last_of_Ushttps://mashable.com/shopping/june-22-the-last-of-us-part-2-merch/https://www.starbucks.com/about-us/company-information/starbucks-company-timelinehttps://www.businessinsider.com/costco-first-store-opened-vintage-photos-2019-2https://www.costco.com/about.htmlAdvertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fm.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In June of 2020, developer Naughty Dog released The Last of Us Part II for PlayStation 4, the sequel to their 2013 critical and commercial sensation about humanity coping with the aftermath of a fungal plague that turns infected into zombie-like creatures. Set two decades after the outbreak, the world of The Last of Us is desperate and brutal, under constant threat of attacks by swarms of infected runners and clickers, though it's often surviving humans who pose the biggest threat, divided into factions warring over scarce resources and perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence. In the story of Part II, the player traverses the American West, including an extended

campaign and a post-apocalyptic vision of Frazier's hometown of Seattle. Mostly vacant, demolished, and overgrown by plant life, one institution helps connect the ruins with the Emerald City we know today. The ubiquitous outposts of Rustin Coffee, the game's fictional stand-in for Seattle-founded coffee shop Starbucks. And while Starbucks has become a part of Seattle and American cultural identity, there's another Seattle-founded chain that is similarly entrenched in our lives, a warehouse-sized club store founded in 1983 by James Cinnigall and Jeffrey Brotman.

Requiring a paid membership, the store developed a fanatical following among budget-minded shoppers with its bulk offerings of foodstuffs, paper goods, and alcohol, and expanded its footprint across the Pacific Northwest throughout the 80s. In 1983, the chain acquired the similar San Diego-founded concept Price Club and the two stores combined branding and kept growing, like a bloater infected with cordyceps. Beyond its grocery offerings and free food samples, currently put on hold due to our own real-world plague, the store features a bustling food court offering loss-leading hot dogs, pizza, and sweet treats.

Today, with nearly 800 outposts, it trails only Walmart as the largest retailer in terms of sales volume in the world. And so, in the future depicted in the Last of Us franchise, where one survival is predicated on shanking stalkers with switch blades and detonating dogs with explosive arrows, you might find success scavenging for supplies to the ruins of a warehouse-sized club store founded in Seattle. This week on Doe Boys, our month-long review of supermarket eats, friendly greengrocer Mitch's grocery store month continues with Costco.

Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weigher, along with my co-host, million-dollar food baby, squint feast good, the Spoonman Mike Mitchell. That's a long roast. It's a long road. I said it was a long roast, but a long road, you're right. It's a long road to that roast. The roast itself is also long.

You could say it's a long roast. You could say it's a long road to land that roast. Whatever verbiage you want to pick, it functionally means the same thing, but that was courtesy of Aubrey. Aubrey writes, yours is my favorite podcast. I hope your acting and writing careers don't take off, so I can have more years of listening to you guys eat yourselves to death while I fold laundry. Thanks, Aubrey.

RoastSpoomMan at gmail.com. You have an insult. You like me? He has a picture on the top of the show. Aubrey, that was a road to perdition, because I'm going to fucking... I'm going to destroy you. I like in road to perdition, Jude Law's character takes pictures. That's fun.

Yeah, I guess you could classify that as fun. Because that's his whole... It's like he takes a picture, he's going to kill someone, takes a picture, he kills someone, and then takes a picture of them. It's one of the two things. I was like, I haven't seen that before. I'm sorry to interrupt. Do you think Jude Law's character is the sympathetic character in road to perdition?

Do you view him as the hero of the picture? I mean, is who I identified with? Nick, I've been watching a lot of movies, you know. You're on a movie kick. We should talk about this with our guests, because our guest is obviously a big movie guy as well. But you're on a movie, you're on a fucking tear. Yeah, well, actually, I've been writing some poetry.

Really? Since I've been trapped inside so much, I've been just watching a lot of movies. Revisiting films from my favorite director, Martin Scorsese, and I'm an artist, so I've been writing some poetry, I'm not only a comedian, and I wrote a little Scorsese poetry. I didn't know you were a man who'd like to put pen to paper and compose some verse. I'm excited to hear this, some Scorsese poetry. I think it's really important. Do you want to hear it?

I think you should, but do you want to hear it? I will. I'm just going to say this in advance, Mitch. I hope the pentabiter is iambic. Yeah, it is. OK. OK, here we go. Travis Bickel ate a pickle while out in New York City.

Rupert Pupkin had a sad grin. The crowd found his jokes quite shitty. Do you like that? That's the poem? No, no, no, it's not done. OK. Billy Costigan got himself lost again while dodging crooks in Boston. Henry Hill, he had his fill, found mob life quite exhausting.

I'm just you're not reacting to these to these to this poem. I feel like any time I've been in a poetry reading, you're just supposed to sound like kind of like quietly appreciate. Yeah, respectful silence. OK, OK. Yeah, most people at poetry readings don't stop every other line to ask, do you like what you're hearing so far? I because I would assume that's part of the poem.

If someone did that, I'd be like, oh, this is like part of their performance art. It feels like a choice. Samuel Rothstein, he went unseen making deals with his Vegas crews. William Defoe said, no, no, no, don't crucify the king of the Jews. All right. That's it. Written by and written or performed by Mike Mitchell. Wow. So that was the end. I mean, it's very good.

Mm hmm. I don't really have notes beyond that, except that I liked it. And I think just, you know, if you're going to perform that again, just just stay in it. I think that you're it feels like you're judging. It feels like you're judging my art a little bit. No, I'm not. I'm judging it good. You're judging it good. I'm judging it good. I'm handing you a blue ribbon.

That's you know, a job well done. The the label every artist wants is for their art to get to be good. So this is perfect. It shows how bored I am that I actually wrote down words even for Doughboy's episode. Yeah, very out of character. Wags how to how to Spoon Nation. And I got a little drop here that I should play, huh? Yeah, baby.

Maron, hot, white, Maron, hot, white, Maron. I touched my penis. It was the tip of my penis. I touched my penis. My penis is burning. I fucked the ice cream. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

This is from Noah, Nick. He says, hi, you should have Bugbane back on the pod on Twitter at Gumby Doofus. Love, Noah. Thanks, Noah. We'll have Bugbane back. He's coming back, don't worry. He's coming back. Mitch, you know, you're talking about Scorsese and then you had a reference to Casino

and then you just shared your screen so you could play that drop and have me think of the zoom era we live in and the actor Sharon Stone. And I just thought like if you were you could do a spoof of that that's like Sharon's screen. This is a character. Yeah, it's like Sharon Stone, but she shares her screen. And to think that you accuse someone else of taking a long road to a joke. If you listen to the first ten minutes of this episode,

I don't think you would classify Nick and I as comedians. No, that joke, it's not like a long road. It's like several exits off of a long road. But worth it. We all agree worth it. Griffin, did you like my Scorsese poetry? Wait, hey, Mitch, don't spoil who the guest is. You haven't announced it yet. Oh, shit. Sorry.

Spoilers. Spoilers. We'll bleep that out. We'll bleep it out. Emma, by the way, Emma, before this episode, Sara asked me if I had my mic. It's a fair question. It was I was insulted due diligence. That is insane. Well, your mic wasn't in the frame.

We couldn't see it on your screen. And I mean, if she's she's not doing her job, if she's not making sure the episode is being properly recorded. I know that we use mics to record what? Well, I mean, I don't I think it's I think it was fine for her to ask the question. I think you were a little too personally insulted by that. Emma, if you're listening as you edit away, you fucked up. Spoonman drops at gmail.com if you'd like your

drop plate at the top of the show. Don't promote that email. And hey, our guest is an actor and comedian from The Tick on Amazon Prime and the podcast Blank Check. He is also the king of crotch. Griffin Newman is back. Hi, Griffin. Hello, guys, thank you so much for having me back this soon.

After my last two appearances, it is the only silver lining I see to this pandemic. It only benefits me. But man, this pandemic has really helped my Doughboys career. Well, we would have had you on. I mean, like, I guess what we've what we've learned, what we've all learned as podcast recorders is that we there is a little bit. We're all a little too precious about getting the guests in the studio, because obviously that's the ideal circumstance.

But you can record this from any. You just have someone call in from anywhere it works out. That's true. It's true. And and, you know, we had always been staunchly anti zoom, anti Skype on on Blank Check, my show. And obviously now we've had to pivot pretty hard. That having been said, as soon as we can record with people in a studio again,

I will probably never want to do a Zoom recording again in my life. Like, as much as this is teaching that it is possible and that perhaps we shouldn't have been so judgmental of the process up until this point, I'm never going to want to look at someone's face on a screen ever again post vaccine. I take the opposite. I feel like I'm never going back. Really? Yeah, I feel like we can do I could I could live one floor above Mitch

and I could and I would still be like, let's just do this over the Internet. Because why bother? Why bother gathering in person? You're pitching Wiger's lifelong lockdown. Yeah, I think I'm going to keep the lockdown going. But what about all those friends you used to invite over to your home? Isn't it going to feel so weird never having friends over into your your living room? The constant parties you you and Natalie used to throw entertaining

tens upon tens of close friends. They call me the Gatsby of the West Side. The wee hours of the night. Yeah, I mean, I'm always throwing balls, but I think I can shift. I think I can adjust. I think I've reevaluated what my priorities are. All I know is that if you if you move above me, I just hope that there's some fucking strong floor beams up there.

Fucking fat ass. I think we got to break through the like your ceiling through my floor. That's because my body mass. How do you envision that happening? Like I just take an errant step and come crashing through like into your living room. You land in the tub with me while I'm in there. Yeah.

Might as well have a dub dub to dope. That's Patriot content. Griffin, Mitch was talking movies and he's a real movie tear. I we we are. Oh, wait, hold on. Hold on. Griffin, did you like my Scorsese poetry? I loved it.

I couldn't comment on it because I hadn't been introduced yet. It was it would have counted as a spoiler. And also I was confused as to when I should weigh in because you kept on asking for opinions. That's why you got to save the ask until the poem is done. This is, you know, this has always been an issue just ever since I've been on a comedy stage. Nick has Nick has been witness to this.

I like a mid show. I'm asking I asked the audience how I'm doing. Yeah, I break character and I'll just I'll ask how I'm doing. Like, you know, when I was the tab guys or if I did whoosh or something, I just would I'd be like, are people enjoying this? I'd kind of break character and ask just in the middle of a sketch. It's it's disorienting. It would happen to on camera, right?

Yeah, you've done it on camera, too. There's a lot of edits. If you watch anything I'm in, there's a lot of edits. Like jump cuts within a single line. If you're watching the birthday boys sketch show, just look for any time that Mitch starts to angle his head towards camera. And then notice that that's oftentimes an edit point. Like he's just slightly rotating his eyes and then they'll cut to the reverse angle.

We say this as a joke, but in reality, every after every scene I do, I'm like, is that OK? Did I do OK? A fucking loser. You know what? Someday, Mitch, I hope the person reassuring you after that take is Martin Scorsese. Wow. You did great, Mitch. It's me, Marty. You did great. I'll I'll say this.

I don't know if this is a humble brag or like a reverse brag or something. Much faster than molasses, boy, so much faster. Martin Scorsese is kind of the opposite of molasses, boy. That's we just we just we actually just talked about this for really. Uh huh. I was going to say my my my anti brag or or or sort of reverse humble brag or whatever it is. I worked with Martin Scorsese.

Wow. But on what I would consider to be the worst thing he ever directed, and I think most would consider it. The the pilot for the HBO series, Vinyl. Wow. He did the pilot to Vinyl. That's right. He did the pilot to Vinyl, and he in retrospect has said that he blames himself for the failure of the show because he did not stay involved past the pilot.

Oh, Scorsese. Don't be it. Don't be so down on yourself. Yeah, no, I can say as a first hand witness, there were many problems with that show. I wouldn't blame them all on him. Doesn't Romano like fucks in that show, right? Romano fucks so good in that show. Oh, oh, shit.

Oh, I'm going to. Oh, I'm going to come right now. Oh, my God. He would always say episode seven. That's the one where I show my ass. So if you want to cancel HBO, it's between episode six and episode seven. That was his joke over and over again. Romano rules. Yeah, Romano seems great.

I've heard nothing of positive things about Romano. Yeah, loved him. Hey, the title of his show makes sense, Wags. Truly. Everybody loves Raymond. They do. There's a reason it's present tense. It's not past tense because people continue to love him. That's true. You know who I love?

I love Raymond. Yes. I love Raymond, the the the Nintendo character, Raymond. Rayman. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a Ubisoft character. Yeah, well, whatever. He's on Nintendo. It's a multi-platform. Yeah, yeah.

Calling him a Nintendo character is kind of an exception. Have you ever played Raymond? Yeah, I mean, it's Rayman. I think it's more Rayman. It's not like Raymond. Ah, I say it, Raymond. I think it's like Rayman. Is it Rayman?

Yeah, it's like Superman or Spider-Man. I can't say Spider-Man. A man of rays. Yeah. I say Spider-Man. OK, well, you're wrong. Peter Spider-Man. That's what I call him. I've played a lot.

I played a lot of a number of the Rayman games. It's a great series. The Rayman, I think the high point was the there was one that was on, again, multiple platforms, but the Dreamcast version I played. I think the second 3D Rayman was a very, very good Rayman. But they're all good. Raymond Legends was was was very good.

Raymond Legends, very good. To move to move back one step, I've told this anecdote before many places, but I used to work at the Disney Store in Times Square. Wow. And the format of the Disney Store employee badge is your first name and then underneath it, the name of your favorite Disney character. Wow.

And I was working there right after Disney acquired Marvel. So I thought I was like being smart by being like, can I have a pick a Marvel character as a Disney character? And they forgot the hyphen. So my badge said Griffin Spiderman. Like it looked like it was my first and last name. It did look it looked like Spiderman as a Jewish last name. And then the thing is, even if someone does catch that it's Spiderman,

it'll be like a pedantic nerd who's be like, where's the hyphen? I know. And I said to them when I had like had to like fill out the form and you had to like fill in your your character choice. I was like, and they're going to remember to put the hyphen in. And the manager was like, yeah, it's Disney corporate office. They're going to remember to put the hyphen in. And then it arrived a week later and there was no fucking hyphen. Wow. Yeah, they must have been sleeping on the job.

I assume Robert Iger used to personally approve of each Disney Store employee badge and he he fucked up. I'll say again what I've said before. Iger out. Wiger in. Let me run Disney. I'll clean that clean that mess up. You have said this before. I will write the ship that is the House of Mouse.

Yeah, get rid of Iger, bring in Weiger, add a W. And hey, maybe Disney will get a W for once instead of taking so many else. Wow. Well, I like it. I think you'd be OK. Yeah, I think I do. I'm a little suspicious as such a big Minions Illumination Animation fan. It almost seems like you want to take over Disney just so you can fucking bomb it

like you can just like sink that shit as like a sleeper agent for the Minions. No, I'm not going to pull us a fucking salt. Who's the guy? Who's the bad guy? It's it's leave Shriver in salt in salt, right? What spoilers? He's like the deep cover president. I'm not going to pull one of those. I'm just saying, I think anyone with such strong

minion ties could not be trusted within the Disney family. Well, hey, maybe I'm looking to make an acquisition, you know, as a Disney's whole thing has been growth by acquisition. Maybe it's time to I know what you're going to do, swooping and pick up French Animation Studio Illumination, add the minions and not to mention the secret life of pets to their IPs. I feel like you're going to go in there and fucking. Take all the drops out of all the roller coasters.

Keep Splash Mountain the way it is. Roller coasters only need to go along a flat plane. Everyone can enjoy that. Just have it be like a like a bunch of chuchus going in elliptical orbits. In Space Mountain, you should really turn the lights on in there. What's this? Ways like a Disney World builds 27 self suck stations. It's a family park. Who needs such a thing?

Imagining like an like the equivalent of like an eye wash station, something just sort of scattered around for emergencies. If you just really have to self suck in a hurry, try to keep it sanitary. Mike and Sully in there self sucking themselves. I feel like it would be hard for Mike. He doesn't have much of a body to, you know what I mean? Yeah, he's just a big fucking orb. Yeah, I don't know how you would do it.

He's got no waistband. Yeah, he really has no waistband. Yeah, I don't know how he functions to begin with. He's fucking living the dream. Let me tell you, no waistband. I do like a, you know, I do just like a free flowing garment. It would put on something that doesn't that doesn't sense around the waist. Boy, that's the ideal, but there aren't a lot of options.

Yeah, he's just fully in the nude. The only thing that guy ever wears is a hat. It's true. There are all most of the monsters in characters are completely nude. Yeah. And seemingly without genitalia. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what's going on there? I can speak for that. You know, I went to Monsters You.

Did you know that, Lager? I did not know that. I graduated cum laude from Monsters You. Wow. You know what's interesting about Monsters You? You watch this movie and it's not bad. I think it's fine. I think it's underrated. It's a very unnecessary prequel as prequels go.

It's like, I don't there's no reason this has to exist. But I think for for that, it's it's it's it's fine. But what's fascinating about it is it's a college film that because it's a Disney Pixar production, it does not have any sex or alcohol or drug use, which are things that are so commonly associated with with a college experience that it's like it's like almost like this puzzle that they're trying to solve. How can we do a college movie without acknowledging any of these things? I remember when they were promoting that movie,

like Pixar people in interviews kept on saying, like, it's exciting. It's Pixar's first college movie. A, like that's a thing that everyone gets around to. Eventually, right? You know, like every filmmaker is like, I need a college movie in my filmography. It's a genre I haven't touched yet. And secondly, it's like, yeah, we know because you can't make a college movie. Yeah. What are you going to do?

No one was questioning why Pixar hadn't made an erotic thriller yet. Like it's like there's a reason most animation studios don't tiptoe into the college genre. College is bad. That's Nick and I stance on it. Yeah, I don't like college. I dropped out. I did not know that. You're a college dropout. Yeah. Yeah. Late registration.

I registered pretty early, but I was. OK. But I dropped out after one semester. Did you really? I didn't know this either, Griffin. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very stupid. You don't seem stupid. I think actually I think it displays some savvy to not go deep into debt from getting a college education. It is funny that I am the of the three of us.

I'm the college graduate of the three. How about that? And I'm and I and a lot of people would say that I'm the dumb. Some people say I'm the dumb one, Nick shows a college. But you're but hey, you compose that that lovely sonnet earlier. How about that? Fuck off. Could you have an end out without a college degree?

Also, not all college experiences involve fucking sex. The other two, sure. I will I will say this. I mean, and I obviously I didn't know this, but I dropped out of college. I did like a semester in change, but I dropped out of college February 2008 and the economy collapses like September, October 2008. Like, not only did I not accrue the debt that I have seen most of my generation get burdened by, but I also avoided that debt

right before the entire economy imploded. That's wild. Nick and I don't care about it. It's a stupid. I mean, it's it's bad. It's bad in a lot of ways. Yeah, unless unless you want to be a scarer like it is, that's one of those professions like doctor, lawyer, scarer, where you need that degree.

So if you want to go to like Harvard Law or like, you know, Cornell Medical or Monsters U for scaring, then you need that piece of paper. But for any other reason, I think it's unnecessary. So one might argue that the ultimate lesson of Monsters University is that Mike and Scully leave college and realize that they're on the job experience is far more valuable. And that's what actually. Yeah, I just made that fucking joke.

But you're right. The the moral of Monsters University is anti college. They get kicked out of the school and they start working as janitors at Monsters Inc. And they work their way up to being a top scarer, top scarer assistant. Monsters University is actually strongly anti higher education. I like it. I've never seen it. I've never I've never seen the cards films either.

You've never seen the cars movies? Uh-uh. Oh, man, you got some catching up to do. Yeah. Should I see? Should I watch cars? I would say that first off, they're lights, camera, Jackson's favorite property, Pixar property. Oh, my God. How did I not know this? Yeah, but then also the, you know, it's I think the cars movies are

interesting because cars two is a completely different genre. It's a weird. It's a very strange film. It's a spy movie. The weirdest movie. It's a spy movie. And then cars three, they kind of get back on track. But, you know, it's it's also like passing the torch to the next that like that. So with that move, they're they're all they're all like kind of different like cars.

One is like a sort of classic sort of mentor, fucking hot shot guy who's got to learn to get his you know, everything, get his ego under control to win the big race. Cars one is like Doc Hollywood. Cars two is like spy hard. And cars three is like a monster's university. It's like monsters university. They're they're weird.

I would I prioritize monsters university way above cars as a person with very serious Pixar opinions. Yes. The most fun monsters university is fun. The most fun thing about cars is Carsland at Disneyland, which you can't go to anymore, but I'm actually wearing a cars hat as we record. I bought from Carsland and Disneyland. Carsland is OK. I'm going to say this. Just OK. It's all right.

It's cool. It's cool. It's awesome. It's got one right rules. It's a cool land. Great to walk around. Yeah. It's great to walk around. You see the cars in real life. They look they look better than any other fucking character. You'll see in the park. It's better than the movies.

Like it works better as an immersive environment than it does as a series of films. What I like about it is that it actually did kind of like the like the fifties theme at Disney just like was just like it's like the fifties or whatever. And this has no real point. And then cars actually gave it a purpose. Yes. It makes sense.

Nick, you know what I'm thinking of here in your cars breakdown? Get rid of Iger. Bring in why I agree with you. Wow. Thank you, Mitch. Disney needs a guy who is enthusiastic about cars who will practically get into a fucking playpen and play with cars. Wait a second. I'm checking deadline. Cars for self-suck-o-rama announced?

It's a departure. But you know they're all kind of different movies. They're all kind of different genres. So. Right. This one's a riff on Deep Throat. Except all solo scenes. It's a very weird deadline story. Everyone's doing every just a just fucking two and a half hours

of different cars doing the whole 34.5. Yeah. Mater chucking on his own tailpipe. That's I was going to say the poster lightning McQueen and Mater having their tailpipes in their mouths. Griffin, you are a lifelong New York City resident. Is that what it is? Quickly. A car's genitalia I guess is it would be a muffler.

I mean I don't know car parts well enough but I always thought that the like a tailpipe is that part of the muffler? Oh yeah. Oh is it a butthole? Tailpipe. The tailpipe is like an exhaust port. Yeah.

Who is the tailpipe a butthole? I think the tailpipe's a butthole. I don't know what their penises would be. Antenna? Yeah. Maybe it's an antenna. Ooh an antenna. Yeah. Yeah I don't know hard to say. Oh Nick you can get into it in the fourth cars movie.

We'll figure it out. We're going to get into a writer's room. We'll get this all solved. But Griffin I wanted to talk to you on a different subject. You are a lifelong New York City resident. We know this from previous episodes with you. There is a lot of talk. We got into this a little bit on our last week's episode

with Fran Gillespie about supermarkets in New York City and how they are less of a thing than or just because of the way New York City works. Not everyone or actually a small fraction of the population is a car. Right. So it's shopping is a whole different experience. There aren't as supermarkets in the traditional sense

that you'll see in the rest of North America. Yeah I mean there are a lot of supermarkets but I think as you're getting at it's more of a behavioral difference. I mean you shop differently when you're probably going to have to walk your stuff back home. Right. Wow.

Or take it on public transit or whatever. But so I think there are maybe I would wager there's almost a greater volume of smaller supermarkets. Like I feel like going to the supermarket is one of the few activities I have allowed myself to do on a regular basis outside of my home in lockdown because I'm a very fearful person and so I almost use going to the supermarket not just as means of staying stocked and staying alive

but also as like an excuse to get a little bit of fresh air. And when I do that I often try to alternate which supermarket I go to for the sense of both variety and what I can buy and also in terms of just changing up my life so it doesn't feel as routine. And there are like I'd say at least eight places worth going to within a 10 to 15 block radius of my apartment. Wow.

So there are a lot and several locations like of the same chains and also some unique standalone chains independently on places. But they're smaller the selections are smaller and you're more buying like just what you can carry home. You know. Right. One bag at a time. It's it's more frequent smaller trips at a greater variety of places.

Yes. I and that is so divergent from my experience at least certainly growing up you know in the suburbs and it being when we do our grocery trip my parents and two growing boys I remember my dad always getting like two shopping carts. It was a two shopping cart thing. He just fucking load up two full carts and then load up our and load up his truck and then take it home because it's like I

think a lot of people they go you know you fucking load up your car with as much many provisions as you can carry and then that'll do you for a fortnight or a month or however often you shop. Right. Like not to get ahead of ourselves but that's sort of the Costco mentality. Yes. Costco banks on that whereas I think outside of Costco in New York it's closer to like like I remember growing up if I would go to the

the supermarket the grocery store with my mom there was a place called Jefferson Market that no longer exists that was near my elementary school and maybe once a week we'd go there and just get some stuff. You know it was just like I need to pick up a couple key items. Why are you talking like you're in fucking Oregon Trail. That's what we would do. We'd pick up enough for a fortnight. Yeah.

Get some provisions. We'd ford the river. And then one of us would die of cholera. Let me guess. Let me guess. You wouldn't get bit by a snake a snake would get bit by you. All right. Also why are you sucking out a snake again.

But but it's happening in like pixel art. It's like bitmap Oregon Trail style static illustration of him sucking a snake. These are the memories of my youth. Yeah. And his dad's truck. How often did your dad make you ride in the back of that thing. I would do it if I wanted to have a little fun. Want to feel like I was in an adventure.

Take you through the fucking car wash. I wasn't a what you think I was some filthy kid. Yeah. Not in the filthy kid. Very hygienic. Yeah right. Always always a hygienic. Psychologically though.

Well yeah psychologically is a different story. Yeah. But so you're talking about your your your trips are more frequent. You're getting fewer things. You're getting enough bags. Now here's a question for you because this is a thing I purchased recently and I love it. And you know living in a more urban area now sometimes taking a walking trip to the grocery store certainly having a walk from our parking space into our apartment.

I have one of them what you'd call a granny cart. I'm so glad you brought this up. And I love it. I love having it. It's a great car because I'm glad I made it. You have you have like a little car your own foldable cart that you can put groceries in and then it's I don't I think it's called the granny cart because you usually see or you often will see older women using them.

But I was going to bring this up in this episode. I too call it a granny cart I have when I live by it. I die by it. So what is your like do you are you are you are a fucking great a dork. You have a granny cart. Yeah I have a granny cart and so does Griffin. Griffin is called Dorks. Weigar and I both revealed the exact same information.

And I'm getting off scot-free and Weigar is a great a dork. Griffin you might have to go down with you might have to go down with Weigar on this one. Gladly solidarity like strength and numbers granny carts fucking rule. It's nice. Yeah makes things easier. You don't have to do it. You don't have to break your back. You don't have to make multiple trips to the car if you're towing everything in.

You know what I'm going to give you I'm going to give you credit. You have proven time and time again you do not give a single ounce of care of what people think about you which I do think is is admirable. Are you talking to me or Griffin. You you don't you don't care you don't care what you you carry you'll have a granny cart all over the place. You know I mean I I just didn't even know that people did that. I truly didn't know that people your age did that.

Well I think it's more common in walking cities. Yes the other thing Weigar you and I have both had bad back injuries in our lives at a relatively young age. I think that's another thing too. Like I will say within New York I feel like my friends have made fun of me for having a granny cart but as someone who threw his back out on set doing a dialogue scene it has come in handy very many times. What was the scene.

Weigar what did you throw your what did you throw your back out doing. All right what was the scene. I'm being serious. We know what you're driving at. I truly want you know but but I want to I want to hear a different scene but I also want to know how you hurt your back. It was it was the last episode what would end up being the last episode ever of the Tech season two.

Wow heading off until the final battle like the last thing we were ever going to shoot. No that's not true. It was the last week of filming but it wasn't the last day but it was within that last week shooting what was going to be the final battle. And so we're like sneaking around into the bad guys headquarters. John Hodgman friend of the show. I guess that's a bit of a spoiler but he we're trying to sneak up on his his evil hideout and then I'm like we have to be careful and strategic or something like that.

And tick being tick just run straight into battle and my character says something like tick and then like size and then goes to run off after tick to try to stop him from causing damage and I threw my back out on the side. Wow that's wild. It was like it was the most on brand injury both for me and for the character. But I sighed too hard and then I had to run off camera and it was like that clip of Tom Cruz after he breaks his ankle and there's still the footage they use of him continuing to run on the fucked up foot except in this case nothing cool had happened.

Like I just sigh and then and then I limp off camera. He jumped he jumped over a building correct Tom Cruz did. Correct and I released oxygen from my lungs and threw out two discs in my back. Is that is that take used in the in the show. You know there were only three takes I threw my back out on the first take and I can't identify it but either they use the take where it happens or the two takes right after. Got it. Because I was like oh maybe I just like pulled a Charlie horse I can power through this

and after the next two takes I was like I can't move. So something in the immediate aftermath ended up on camera. Those disc injuries are debilitating. Yeah I shot most of that last episode with a fucked up back. Wow. Like taped up and iced down and everything. I broke my arm during a during a birthday boy sketch in the birthday boy show. And it's it's it's stayed in the stayed in the it was the only take that really worked

because I was so afraid after that and the in the pregnant with what sketch where it means Zoe Jarman who's really great. Nick how did you throw out your back. There was not a specific injury it's like a repetitive stress thing and so just from years of having desk jobs sitting like I am right now kind of hunched over a computer and so like I gradually it was it was I had a bulging disc L5S1 which is very common and that's pressing on my sciatic nerve and so it was just it was both both really debilitating back pain but also going down into my leg.

That's what I had too. Yeah sitting for seven eight. It was lower right and one of my legs was just totally fucked up by it. Completely fucked up. But the thing that ended up helping it was core strengthening because you can basically your core like my core was so fucking pathetically weak that you know all that my back was doing all the work and by getting everything you know all squared away in my midsection and and my my fucking my buttocks.

Nick did you do you have some sciatica. Yes sciatica yeah. Griffin I gotta quickly ask before I forget. Please. Have you ever been bit by a tick. Great question I don't think I have my mom was and had Lyme disease for like two years. Wow. Which I didn't I had kind of blocked out of my memory until I got the part and then had to do

all this like press where people ask you the same fucking questions over and over again where you start thinking about everything. Yes. But yeah my mom got bit by a tick when I was probably like seven or eight and spent like the better part of two years in bed including my family is like long planned first ever trip to Disney World. My mom my dad would take my brother and I out to like the rides and stuff and my mom just stayed in the hotel room with the lights off like staring up at the ceiling and then on

the last day we rented a wheelchair and we brought my mom around on a wheelchair and she had the strength for like three rides so it was like we each picked one ride we liked to bring mom on and we were able to skip all the lines. Dear Lord. Yeah so so one could say that the tick was very important to me it was it was me trying to sort of take back the the word you know take the power away from those ticks and give power to a different tick I was very emotionally invested in the project. Wow.

Wow. Have you ever been bit by a tick? No I don't like no I don't think so. I mean because you would know right because it like kind of burrows under your skin. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes sometimes Lyme disease changes people's personalities. Absolutely.

And so I'm I kind of feel like I should let some ticks loosen your house. You're hoping that I will get bitten by a tick and that it will merge after a bout of Lyme disease debilitating illness with a different personality. It becomes very sociable. Also it usually goes the other way from what I've heard I've heard I've heard you know there's a lot of myths about it but a part of me feels like you are like your brother. When I first met your brother it was a party dude who I like to hang out with and then you got bit by a tick and you're now current day wiger.

No this has always been me. No there was no inciting incident. Inciting incident was my birth. I came out of the womb like this. First words were hey buddy. Hey buddy. Wow a miracle of life huh. Wow.

So okay so you're going on your supermarket trips are more frequent you got your granny cart in tow. Absolutely. You're not getting as many as many items but what are your supermarket staples. I know your guy who likes who has a lot of frozen foods. What are the things you get like basically every grocery trip. Yeah that's a great question. I'm also a guy who will fixate on like I'm very much a creature of habit until I wear

myself out on something you know. I'll go really hard on like one restaurant or one activity or one whatever until I get sick of it and then I back off of it. So I'm trying to think like the things I've been really big on right now. One which is kind of weird. I don't know if you guys have ever even talked about this. This is slightly more deli boys territory not to invoke a rival podcast. Dr. Brown's cell ray soda.

Yeah. Which is a celery tonic which I started getting when I would go to Jewish delicatessons in New York during quarantine. I've been buying it in like bulk. Like I just every time I go to the grocery store there's the one near me. I get like two six packs of that. I'm downing that constantly. Is it like is it have any sweetness to it.

It's very sweet. That's what scared me off for so long and I'm not a vegetable guy at all. I only tried it because I was like novelty when in Rome. I should have this once in my life. I'm Jewish. I live in New York City. I'm eating pastrami. I should try a celery soda.

It's very sweet. It's sort of based off of celery root. So it doesn't feel like you're drinking like tomato juice. Even though tomatoes are fruit. I fucked that up. It doesn't feel like drinking like a V8. You know. Yes.

It's very much a soda. It does not taste like celery but it does have a bizarre character to it. I just I just was talking about celery soda the other day. And I was saying that HBO Max was Coca-Cola and that Netflix was celery soda. And I wonder how you'll feel about that. I don't know if I've ever really tried it. Maybe we have to drink some celery soda, Nick. It's worth trying.

I've never had it either. Look, I think it would make a perfect drinker stink. It's kind of ideal because it is such a specific flavor. You're going to come down strongly on it one side or the other. I think that I think if I didn't know like ginger ale. If I just knew ginger and they're like, we made a drink of it. Yes. I would be like, oh, like there's a couple of things that I'd be surprised that

that they taste good in in soda form. How about root beer? Yes. There you go. Who wants it? Well, you don't want to drink the root. I would say that celery is very much along those lines where like you so rarely have the kind of high end ginger ale where you actually can taste the ginger.

What we think of as ginger ale now is like some weird sort of distorted flavor palette, right? Yes. And celery soda tastes as much like celery as like Canada dry does like a ginger root. Interesting. But it's got almost a ginger ale kind of texture to it. That sort of sweetness. Do Canadians have any national pride in Canada dry? They better.

Is that like a thing where they're like, that's our thing? I'm jealous of them. I wish there was an American ginger ale company. I could feel that level of jingoistic pride for. Yeah, there really isn't. Because if there was, you know, like that America would be talking about all the time. Seagrams feels very British to me. I don't know if that's based in anything.

No, I know the Seagrams doesn't feel American. No. Yeah, I don't. Yeah. I mean, is there even an American ginger ale brand of note? God damn it. Seagrams is from Canada as well. Wow.

Just complete dominance of the fucking ginger ale sector. Canada just fucking owns ginger ale. That's wild. That's why it's like maple syrup. It's like they just have complete ownership of it. Wow. Yes, Seagrams is Montreal based and Canada dry is from Toronto. Wow.

How about that? What do we got? What's the Schweppes? Are we Schweppes? Schweppes from Vancouver. I'm looking it up. Weiger. Weiger, don't fucking don't blow my mind like that, man.

I'm telling you, it's a British Columbian soda. Wait a second. Griffin, what's going on? What have you found out? Schweppes is a beverage brand that originated in the Republic of Geneva. Whoa. Wow. Wow.

French-speaking westernmost state of Switzerland. Wow. So yeah, what's the best? We have good colas that are American. Yes. But no, ginger ale is not really our thing here. You have to import it. No, I guess we got some good artisanal small batch ginger ale.

Sure. But the big dogs. But as far as macro brews go, yeah. No, they're not here. They're not American. The top three. Seagrams, candiedry, and... Seagrams.

Seagrams, candiedry, and sorry, Schweppes. We got no steak. Schweppes. We got no pride there. Nick, we went to the Coca-Cola factory, a trip you did not enjoy. We were down in the hot Lanta, which I call it because it's so hot. And it was, you know, it was... It truly was not that hot when you were there.

It was pretty hot. But I don't think the Coca-Cola factory tour is all that engaging. We talked about it on a Doe Boys double world of Coca-Cola. You and me and Emma went. And yeah, I don't think that was... I just don't think there's a lot to that actual... I also think it's not really a factory tour. It's all artifice.

It's like a theme park they've set up to sort of sell you on the concept of Coca-Cola. Sold. But it's not like you're walking through a back... A bottling plant. I was sold walking through the door. We'll be back with more Doe Boys. Welcome back to Doe Boys. It is Friendly Green Grocer Mitch's grocery store month.

All month here on the podcast. That's right, Nick. You don't seem that excited about it. I mean, it is what it is. Our guest is Griffin Newman. And we're reviewing Costco. Hey, I'm excited about this. Costco.

This is a chain we've wanted to discuss for some time, Griffin. We were never able to get you into the studio. Nick, something important's come up. Yes. Griffin, on your drinking cup there, on your cup with water in it, you got... Is that Spike? Who do you think it is? Spike from the Gremlins?

No. Wait a second. It's very different than what you think, but I just realized my cup has something. We have a group text now. The two of you and me and my co-host, David Sims from Blank Check. Called Blank Doe is the name of our group text, where we have a lot of movie discussions. And my cup is a movie that we were just shitting on, collectively, all four of us the other night. Wow.

This is a promotional cup from Hobbs and Shaw. Wow. What? How did I get Spike? That's why I'm so confused. I don't know where you thought Spike the Gremlin was on here. She thinks Statham was Spike? Yeah.

Oh, that kind of looks like Spike, I guess. That looks like a Gremlin ear. Yes, what is that? It's actually Jason Statham holding a chainsaw over his shoulder. A very Spike weapon. It's the kind of thing he might do. It looks like a Gremlin ear kind of thing. That looks like Spike.

Yeah, no, but it's Statham. Statham and Spike, two celebs that look alike that you'd never think it. Yeah. No, I have a Gremlins glass as well, but this is my shitty glass I use when I don't worry about taking care of anything. Wow. It matches the level of podcast. No, no, the level of movie. We are the Hobbes and Shaw of podcasts.

Not true. Yeah, no, that movie is very popular. Costco was originally opened in Seattle in 1983. It merged with Price Club, a San Diego chain. I used to go to Price Club as a boy. Really? That was our only... We were a Price Club family until the early 90s when they merged.

That was a flashback to when you were a boy. Glenn Miller's in the mood. Yeah, it was in the early 50s. Popular song from the 1930s. Let's go to Price. Think my childhood predates World War II. Let's go to Price Club, father. Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. So Costco and... Back to no fun, I say. Became its current form in 1993 when it merged with Price Club. It's now the second largest retailer in terms of volume of sales in the world. You know what's sick about this podcast is that people like when you don't have fun. They like when you go back into this of telling this history of Price Club. They like that more.

That's part of the experience. That's part of the show. You're rocking the boat. I'm trying to get it back on course. It's fun to rock the boat. You're making mischief. I'm trying to get us to our destination. You're calling me Spike?

I'm a Spike. You're kind of like Spike. I need to step away for one second. Hopefully it is not a problem. Okay. Okay, give me one second here. All right, Nick, you and I can just discuss the podcast while he's gone. Griffin stormed out in the huff, happens with our guests often.

I got to say this, that his background is Costco. Yes. And it looks like he was like walking down the aisle of Costco as he walked away. It was kind of cool. Pretty cool effect. Mitch, you are not a Costco member. I have been a Costco member for as long as I can remember. But you are a, but you are not a, you joined the Costco so that you could evaluate it for this episode.

That's correct. I joined Costco for the app. I went to the local, my local Costco, which is actually not that far away. Um, uh, it's in Atwater next to the Best Buy. I think it's at Los Feliz Boulevard or not. And maybe it's, it changes. If you take Los Feliz Boulevard and you just keep going straight, you get to it across the highway.

You know where it is, why? I guess you've been there. Yeah. I have an idea. I didn't want to get too specific with a local geography, but yeah, it's, it's in a different, it's in a neighborhood near you. And it is, yeah, I know that shopping complex. I know that I, there was a soup plantation.

In fact, when we had Lindsay Kaytai and Kelly Nugent on. That's where we went. From Teen Creeps, we went to that soup plantation, RAP soup plantation, now closed slash sweet tomatoes. But the, but yeah, there's a Costco in that, in that part, in that structure. And, uh, that's a pretty high volume Costco, I will say. It's, it is very high volume and I'll, I'll speak to that a moment. Griffin's back.

We got Griffin back. Guys, uh, I am very sorry. This is the most, uh, uh, Doughboy's appropriate excuse ever. I need to step outside very quickly because I have an ice cream delivery arriving. And it cannot melt. Wow. It's time sensitive. So I'll be back in just a moment.

Griffin is going to go pick up some ice cream. This is very exciting. This is unprecedented on the show. I don't know if we've ever had a guest receive ice cream. Now he's also wearing a NASA hat as he is walking away. So I'm wondering if he's going to come back with some astronaut ice cream. The kind that Buzz Aldrin might have enjoyed mid-flight. That's some good deducing there, Nick.

Look, I've got, I've got a detective's brain. What can I say? You couldn't be a detective. I could 100% be a detective. Um, I'm sure you'd like, uh, have you watched any of Perry Mason? I have not watched Perry Mason. I want to watch Perry Mason. It's exactly the kind of down the middle show that I think I would appreciate,

but I have not gotten to watch it yet. The first episode, he's like spying on, um, what is, what is, it's not Fatty Arbuckle, but it's like another guy like who's a, like a, an old fat actor, man. But it's not, it's like supposed to be Fatty Arbuckle, right? They like made a, oh yeah, no, it's, it's a fictional character, but it's a, it's a take on someone from real life. It's like Portley Orbison or something. Yeah.

But, um, Chunky Johansson. Um, Chubby Smithfield. Audition for, but let me tell you, I didn't audition for, um, let me tell you why. The character is just named Mitch. This guy, he's spying on him. The guy's got the, he's got the Hodor Hog. I think they must use the same prosthetic. This thing is fucking huge.

Is it, are you sure it's a prosthetic or is it possibly, possible this guy's just packing heat? Woo, it's possible he's packing heat, but that is, the heat is on, if that's the case. He's got a pipe, you're saying. He's got a big rig. So it's, it's like a, but it's a scene where he's just like fully in the buff. It's like this, this, uh, man of size and you get to see his junk. Yeah.

He's like, he chases Perry Mason. Uh, uh, he takes, Perry Mason takes photos of him and then he chases after him. What is this show? He's taking, he's taking like creep shots of a naked big dude. I think he's like, he's doing that thing where he's like, maybe this is in the part in his career where he is like, he's taking like getting, getting paid to take photos of people for studios. Oh, like, yeah.

Salacious stuff. He can sell for the tabloids or whatever. Yeah. Tabloids, yeah. Kind of an LA confidential thing. Got it. Yeah. But yeah, no, I'm sure, I'm sure you'll check it out after this, but man, that's a hog.

Yeah. I'm going to Google it right now on MizSkin. I think, I think, I think it might be, uh, I think it, I think it, I think it might be the Hodor Prop as well. I think, I think. They're just reusing that on all HBO shows. I think they maybe repurpose the Hodor, the Hodor Prop. Um, Nick, I was going to say, and I'm going to make it an official right here.

The Doughboys Pilot Club. We're going to review pilots on the double. Pilots? Oh, like TV pilots. Yes. Sure. And that's that, folks. Sounds good.

A new idea is born. I have no objection, I guess. Oh, the Doughboys Pilot Program. That's what it was going to be called. That's a little bit, that's more of a thing than saying pilot club. Sorry. What do you want from me? No, that's good.

Our guests ran out and get ice cream, which often happens with you and I during records, but never with our guests. We've made it pretty seamless with this many reps under our belt. You can sprint out to the ice cream truck and make it back without missing a beat. Well, do you want me to get into my experience of signing up? I might as well. Please do. So not a member.

I've never been, BJ's was the, was the wholesale club in my neck of the woods growing. Yes. BJ's wholesale club. I remember seeing Sonic on a TV at BJ's wholesale club as a kid. Very cool. And being like, shit, Sonic looks cool. And Sonic, Sonic still looks great. Again, it just looks great.

He, you were talking about him as like an individual. Yeah, like the character looks great. Looks cool as hell. Just seeing it up on the screen, I was like, you know, one of those months where I was blown away, but I have not really been up. Look, I live by myself. What am I going to get a bunch of stuff for? I don't have a separate fridge, which I feel like a lot of the time for,

for, for wholesale shoppers. Yes. I think that does speak to a lot. There is a, there is an affluent side of suburbia that has a second fridge, oftentimes in the garage, where you can stockpile things like this. Your two fridge Joneses, they got the, they got the two, they got the two fridges. Yes. Growing up when my, I think my, my mom's aunt, who we call Mamie, she was, she had a,

she died and she had a fridge and, and we got the fridge and put it in our basement. And so we became a two fridge family. Yeah. Sounds kind of like your silver spoon, man. Can I just say, having to leave to go accept an ice cream delivery feels like the dough boy's version of a breaking news flash. We say breaking chews here, but yes. Yes. I must tend to this melting ice cream.

What did you get? What was your, what's your haul? What ice cream did you get? There's a great place here in New York called Mikey likes it, which is an independently owned ice cream place with two locations. And they've been going through some hard financial times because the government prioritized bailing out Kanye West and Jared Kushner before actual small businesses. So I ordered a couple of pints from them, but I didn't know it was going to arrive right now.

By the way, if anyone looks through that loan website and sees an entry for a dough boys media, that's fake news. We did not accept a quarter million dollar PPP loan of taxpayer money. Mikey likes it, a phrase said to me constantly growing up. I'm sure you're a Mike. I'm Mike and I was a pick, I was a picky eater. And then also I became a kid that then I eventually became someone who ate everything, but that the, you know, the commercial, Mikey likes it.

I also looked, I think it is, is Mikey the kid from Christmas story? I think it's a different, I think it's a similar type. Now I want to look this up. I feel like they were trying to get that guy, they were trying to get a, that kid, but it's not that. Yeah, no, it's, it's not, he's not even blonde. You know, you know, messy Marvin, you know what, messy Marvin, which, which I was also called is the kid from Christmas story, I believe.

Wow. And I, and he, and, but Mikey likes it. He's just like a little dumb looking kid. Like a, I mean, he's cute. Right. The Mikey likes it guy is now the director of ad sales for Madison Square Garden. Wow. He used to work for ESPN.

Wow. What a journey. I'm looking at this up right now. I talk about breaking shoes. Yes. Yeah. Now he's working for Jim Dolan. That's no fun.

So I, so the, Mitch, you were talking about signing up for your Costco membership. Yes. Did you not have one prior to this episode? Had your membership lapsed? I had, I never had one. Oh my God. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. By the way, here's messy Marvin, who I'm almost positive is the kid from Christmas story.

Mitch is sharing his screen now. He has a toe headed chap with a pair of Coke bottle glasses. He definitely looks like when you've posted child photos of yourself, Mitch. It's a real spitting image. I looked exactly like messy Marvin as a kid and I was messy like him. Frill Bottle always says that I would be the kid on the, on the school you have that had like spaghetti sauce all over space. That's, I feel like that's on the grand scale of things better than being the juice stain kid.

Right. The kids with the juice stain, it felt like you could not wipe that away. Yeah. You're so just sticky shame. Right. Spaghetti you can lick. Yeah, the stinky kid, the stinky, the stinky kid. Stinky kid's different from the stinky kid, but yeah, another prior.

But I do feel like often the juice stain kid would smell like poop. I, I, maybe I'm just thinking of a couple of specific kids. Yeah. But I feel like those are maybe matched behaviors. I agree with you. Yeah. You know what? Spaghetti sauce stain guy, not that bad.

I, I dealt with it. I, I did all right. Yeah, that was pride. I, I had, I was saying that I had never been a member. I was a, when I was younger, we went to BJ's wholesale club when I was a kid. Okay. And Costco, I just had never, I'd been inside of Costco, but I'd never, I'd never shopped there really.

So I went huge line around the block, like around the corner of the building. So this was yesterday was your first time ever stepping foot in a Costco? I had been inside of Costco and I'm trying to think of why. And I think maybe I was with someone buying something or something and I got in, even though they're pretty strict about letting people in. They'll let in a plus one. If you're a company by a member in good standing. I feel like these days, and maybe it's just because they know me around those parts,

but I feel like I don't even get carted walking in. It's just when you get up to the register, you have to scan your membership in order to check out. Look, I don't want to brag, but when I walk into Costco, they go, the usual, sir. And there's a shopping cart already filled with 28 large bulk items. Weigar, Weigar gets the good fellas treatment where he comes in through, comes in through the back warehouse and they sit them in, in front of a TV in the, in the TV section. The only podcast where people brag about who's in better standing at their local Costco location. Kind of a big deal at my warehouse.

So I went in there, they sent me in. I told them I want to buy a card. They sent me in the exit. I went into the exit and then waited at kind of where the returns are. There's a, there's a door for returns and then there's a little, there's like a, there's a counter where they just help people one by one. There was a lady there who was a funny lady. She was talking about a lot of stuff, also pulling her face mask out while she talked,

which is kind of, you know, to feast the whole purpose of it. And then I was like, Hey, but they're saving us. And she's like, I don't know, but she was funny. I liked her, but she seemed to be anti face mask and was pulling it out as she talked to me, was making me nervous. And then another person walked by and coughed on me for real. I was in anxiety city. I was out of my mind.

It was, it was the most busy place I've been to since this all started. And if I get Corona virus or COVID, it was definitely from when I visited the store yesterday. Anyways, waiting to, waiting to, uh, waiting to get my ID. It took a little bit, uh, Krista finally helped me out and she hooked me up. She told me that if you sign up for a credit card, that you get a $60 cashback thing. So I did that, not going to use the card, I don't think, but I got the $60 cashback. They took my photo, which will be a funny photo, photo because my beard is crazy. And then Krista let me go into the store, which was huge because I had already been waiting for

about 45 minutes. And so getting back in that line would have been kind of crazy. So that was it. I was in the store and it inside. It wasn't as crazy. There was a huge line to get out, but it wasn't like it was packed. And that's probably because there's just so many people. There were definitely, there were some traffic jams.

And I feel like this is maybe just a Costco thing of like so many carts flying around, people just leaving their carts. And then I was just in a traffic jam zone when I was in the back, but overall pretty good experience for my, for my first time. It wasn't, after, after I got the, over the initial claustrophobia of everything, it was, it was pretty decent. So Griffin, this is a, this is a thing you told me that floored me. I think we talked about this maybe two years ago when we originally were discussing this.

I mean, I don't want to do too much table setting, but I was doing like a little bit of a mental timeline in my head. And I think this episode has vaguely been in the works for four years. Wow. And it was every time I came to LA, I would try to sync up with you guys. And it would either be like Mitch was on his six months sabbatical to the Quincy basement. There was one time we were all ready to go. I had my flights booked and then Mitch booked tomorrow war.

That's right. There were like multiple sort of setbacks, but we've been talking about doing this for a very long time. I'll cancel this movie. I'll drop out to do the Costco episode. I know. And I, I really respect that. And in fact, I mean, the producers and directors of tomorrow war said, please take him up on that. We'd love to lose him without having to fire.

But I said, no, no, I really want, unlike the person who submitted this week's roast or drop, I really, really want Mitch to do well in his career. But yes, we've been talking about this for a very, very long time. And the stat you're going to throw out, I think I know what you're going to say. Well, here I was, it may be something different, but I was going to say that floor B is that you, that there is a Costco on the island of Manhattan. Yes. Okay.

So I, I can do my little table setting here on my history with Costco had had almost no exposure to Costco, barely even understood what it was outside of like shorthand for jokes, buying things in bulk, you know, and like Sam's Club Costco was also a foreign concept to me because it is very much a suburban thing, much like being a certain type of two fridge family, a cough, cough, spoon man. Hold on a second. Did anyone else have two fridges? Absolutely not. Wags?

We had one fridge. Wait. Wow. We may have eventually, we, I think we eventually had a second fridge. Oh, something that happened to me too. A second fridge in the garage. I don't remember how we acquired it. When my aunt, my great aunt died, I got another fridge.

What, what, what, what a trade off. Silver burglar, man. Yeah. What is the equivalent? If it's Silver Spoon Man, maybe it should be Truffle Burger Boy. I don't like that. I don't love truffles. Well, he doesn't like Silver Spoon Man either.

If you weren't too comfortably. Of course, you're not supposed to like it. Yeah. You don't like silver? No. You're a werewolf? Yeah, look at him. No more questions.

The slowest werewolf. The slowest werewolf transformation. You know what I realized? I have one last thing from Costco that I didn't try, and I kind of want to put it in my, and I kind of want to go put it in my air fryer. Why don't you, why don't you start that up? Griffin, you can, you can tell us a little bit more about,

about your Costco history. I won't be too indulgent here, but yes. Had very little exposure to Costco, very much not a city thing. I think at some point in the late 90s or early 2000s, they opened two locations. I think there's one in each borough now, but they were slow going, and they tended to be on the outskirts of the boroughs.

Right. And you say each borough, we're talking Manhattan. Nailed it. Brooklyn. Two out of two. The Bronx. Correct. Queens, Staten Island, all five boroughs.

Yes. Incredibly well done. Oh my God. Gold star. Yes, they slowly started entering the boroughs, but in sort of outskirtsy neighborhoods. And we were a family living in Manhattan who didn't always have a car.

Like sometimes my father would rent a car for a year, but it's not the kind of thing many New Yorkers do, because as I said, our relationship to groceries and shopping is quite different. Then I moved to East Harlem in 2010, and that coincided almost directly with Harlem, with Costco opening their first ever Manhattan location. So it was when I was trying to figure out

where to go shopping in my new neighborhood that I stumbled across the Costco and immediately fell in love. I feel like first, just from the fact that I had to have a membership to enter the door, I got very turned on by being negged to that degree. It was sort of like, I never want to be part of a club that would have me as a member thing.

I respected the fact that at first they said no, and it made me want to do whatever it took, which turned out to be a pay $60 in order to be let through that door. And it's the opposite of what Mitch said, which is I, as a very, very anxious person, found myself immediately feeling so relaxed inside Costco. I think something about how big it is,

how expansive it is, how quiet it is, that you don't have classic supermarket music playing, that it has this open warehouse feel, that I feel like it's always very perfectly set in terms of temperature. I just immediately fell in love with it. And for the last 10 years, I've been something of a Costco fanatic, and I ended up moving closer to that Costco,

specifically so that I could be in walking distance for two years. I lived two blocks away from that Costco, so that I could take my little granny cart and go buy once a week. A, just anytime I need to pick up one item or two, and B, sometimes just to eat at the food court. Like I would sometimes walk over there

just because it's one of my favorite fast food restaurants. I definitely would, at that part of it, I can definitely relate to it. I mean, Costco has always been more of a, I'm going to go, and this will be my big trip where I'm going to grab a bunch of different stuff and load up my car. But as far as just going to the food court,

I have done that a lot, especially working office jobs. Because it is, so we should talk about, there's kind of two different aspects of Costco I think we're going to touch on here. Obviously the store, which encompasses Kirkland Signature, their store brand, but the food court, which until this year, until April of this year, you did not even have to be a member to take to make use of.

Wow. They have updated their policy and made it restrictive. But their food court is an incredible value. I mean, the hot dog you can get for $1.50 comes with a soda. Slice of pizza, $1.99. I'm very happy, actually, that we're doing this as part of grocery store month. Since this episode has been in advanced talks for so many years,

at different points it took different forms. And originally I was very, very much in favor of the idea of just reviewing Costco as a fast food restaurant. Like essentially only really judging it off of the food court. But I think it's more valuable to view it as a whole. The food court has a very important piece, a large slice because of course that is the bread and butter of this podcast. But also judge it as a grocery store and as a company.

Yes. And speaking of food and Costco, one aspect of the Costco experience that has been expunged due to our current conditions is the free samples. Now this was a staple of the Costco shopping experience. And you would go around and you could, hey, especially as a kid, you could get yourself a dozen free samples from various stations, have some turkey jerky, have a ravioli with some sauce,

have a mini square of pumpkin pie, whatever they're hawking. Nick. And you could have yourself a pseudo lunch. They don't have it right now. Is it true in the early 80s you almost put Costco under because of this because of all these free samples? Because me as a fat little boy was gorging on so many free samples that I hurt them financially, no Mitch that did not happen.

But so the free samples are not available right now. But the food court is, the food court is at least at my location. I went to the Marine Del Rey location on the west side of Los Angeles. The food court has a restrictive menu. They don't have as many offerings now. They've kind of nailed it down to pizza, hot dogs, smoothies and ice cream. And I got a slice of cheese pizza.

That's the exact menu I had. And a fruit smoothie. They used to have a berry smoothie. It's now a fruit smoothie. I will say of the fruit smoothie, I got the very last one. They told me this is the last one. And ever? Maybe ever.

He just said last one. He said it pretty declaratively. It could have been, I mean, they could just be phasing out the menu item entirely. If so, I feel lucky because it was a very tasty smoothie. It is very appley, but it did taste fresh. Maybe a little too much apple for my, I like it. I maybe like the berry smoothie a little bit better versus this sort of vaguely fruit one, but it's still good.

And apparently this one's a little bit more nutritious. Yeah, because I still got the berry smoothie. You still got the berry smoothie. I got it today. Yeah. But it is, I mean, you phrased it perfectly. You texted us yesterday and said, sort of warning, the food court has been nerfed. It does feel like almost like, I know it has to do with Corona

and them eliminating their sort of seating area. And I think not wanting people to congregate around too much and thus limiting the menu items. But it does almost feel like Costco is worried that they would be too powerful on Doe Boys, that they lowered their skills so that they weren't too dominant because you would have to create a new kind of plate club just for Costco. Like a diamond plate club. That's almost what it feels.

If I want to be conspiratorial, that's almost what it feels like. But I think it's probably more just a health concern. But I do think, I mean, even though this is a limited menu, Costco's always been good about having a good food court, but not having too many options. I mean, it's always sort of like eight options total, maybe one or two have varietals. And in that way, they kind of remind me a little bit

of something like in and out, where it's like we're just going to do a couple things really well. Right. We're going to have here, we got the barbecue brisket sandwich and the chicken bake as well. Those are our savory options, plus the pizza and the hot dog. And then one of those two will rotate out in a few months and we'll try something else. Right. They'll try out new things.

There are things that are regional. I've been to a couple overseas Costco locations. There was one time we were getting ready to record, one of the many times we had to cancel this. Where I was in Montreal and I texted you or DM'd you that I had gone to the Montreal, Quebec Costco just to see if their menu differed. And in fact, they had poutine and it was some of the best poutine

I have ever had in my life. I've spent a lot of time in Canada. I have some of my best friends live in Toronto. I tend to go visit at least once or twice a year. I know from poutine. I don't want to say I'm an expert, but I've dined at some of the classic canonical poutineries in Canada and the Costco poutine was up there.

It put up numbers respectable against the best of the best. I will say, pivoting from poutine to what they have domestically here in the States, the hot dog, as always, I ate it in my car, a home run. Just a fucking great hot dog, incredible value, very flavorful, big meaty, lengthy, girthy, frank. Yeah, it's like a Y-Gurr-sized hot dog. It really is something that you would struggle to fit

in your mouth all at once, especially if it was coming from your own body. Let me guess you saw it and you're like, it's not that big. It's kind of small. So they give you a little mustard. They asked if I wanted mustard and ketchup. They used to have a self-serve station.

Obviously that's gone. So they gave me a little cup of mustard, which was not very easy to dispense. Why did you just do a jackoff motion for the self-serve station? I wasn't doing a jackoff motion. I was doing a pump motion. Oh, okay.

It's weird, you did a jackoff motion and then a bunch of mayonnaise splattered across your face. That's what it looks like at least. The pump motion was strange. If you think that's a jackoff motion, I'm curious if you're jacking off with a fully open palm, like you're clapping your hands. I was depressing a pump.

Nick, go on, keep going. Hot dog was great. The mustard was a little bit clumsy, clunky to get out there because it was just like a cup that you would like a dip in cup. But it worked out fine, delicious. My slice of cheese pizza had a little bit of a catastrophe. So it's not a great to go set up they have there. They just give you a paper plate with a piece of foil over it.

I didn't really have a great way to balance it, so I put it on top of one of my purchases in my cart. And as I was pushing it to my car, everything toppled over and the cheese pizza fell and hit the, like some of the one side of it hit the surface of the cart. Now I was like, I still have to honor this cheese pizza a little bit. So I took some bites from the other side,

the side that did not touch the surface of the cart. But it was still, I wasn't able to, it was tasty, but I wasn't able to fully enjoy it because I was so worried about it from a hygienic standpoint. Jesus. Yeah, but the hot dog was great. The smoothie was very good, just a little appley. But not overly sweet, nice and tart.

Griffin, what did you get from the food court? I tried to get one of everything. I got the hot dog with the soda. I went with a raspberry brisque iced tea. I got a slice of pep. I got the berry smoothie, which they did have, and he gave me no warning of that being a limited item. There was no sense of finality to the smoothie I drank.

And I also got a strawberry sundae. So I mean, the only other things I could have gotten, they have this sort of, I think it's a mocha varietal of the smoothie out of that same machine. There's these chocolate sundae instead of the strawberry sundae, which is just a difference of what kind of sauce you have. And then the plain cheese versus the pep. But I've had those alternate items in the past.

And I got to say what I did, I mean, this was kind of nice. They've gotten rid of their seating area. They used to have these sort of picnic tables set up, and now they've gotten rid of that because they don't want people to linger for too long. But my best friends still live two blocks away. They used to be my neighbors when I lived within walking distance of this Costco location.

So I went over to see them and ate this in the backyard, but I got, it's one of the things I like about Costco that threw me off at first, but I like the challenge of it, that of course they don't have bags. So if you don't have your own kind of grandma cart, you're maybe either bringing your own bags or they have that sort of container at the entrance that's all the big cardboard boxes.

Yes. So they encourage people to sort of be like, you're recycling. Really, you're taking a cardboard box that was used for shipping and using it to transport your own items. So I found a very small one of those boxes and put all my food items in it, avoided a Uyghur style pizza catastrophe,

and then ate this in my friend's backyard. And I'll say eating it, the first thing my friend, Sophie Fader and Hawkin, Lindsey, he is a listener of Doe Boys, and she is married to him and is sort of a captive listener of Doe Boys. That's the way it works. Still counts as a download.

But she was watching me eat this Uyghur-sized hot dog, and she said, you know, I had the worst hot dog of my life today. I was so hungry at work that leaving, I bought a hot dog from just your sort of classic New York street vendor, and it was like gray and it was like so dry, and it was half the size of what you're eating right now,

you know, barely four mitches. And these are the terms she used. I'm just, don't shoot the messenger. But, you know, she said it cost four dollars. It cost four dollars. Four dollars. Right, you're sitting there eating a $1.50 hot dog with large soda, found soda included,

that has twice the length, twice the girth, tastes better, and you got this really thick pillowy bun that has like seasoning on it. I don't know what it's flecked with, but there's some sort of flecking on it. I think it's sesame seeds. There's sesame seeds, right? Yeah, it just tastes delicious.

I, you know, I miss the, you know, the relish. They used to have relish and slaw that you could sort of dispense on your own. They got rid of that, understandably. And onions, raw onions. Yeah, that stuff was great. I understand that's a concession for hygiene because of corona, but my location did have

the little cartons of ketchup and mustard, and I put the two of them on it, and I had a fucking ball of a time eating this thing. Wow. Yeah, the hot dogs, fucking great. It's unbelievable, and it is one of those things where it's like, it's a principal item for them. They talk about it's always been a loss leader,

and honestly, their entire food court has been a loss leader. I watched a 45 minute documentary on Costco last night for preparation. It was a CNBC special called Costco Craze Inside the Warehouse, and the founder of Costco, whose name I'm forgetting right now, Sengal, something Sengal, who as far as I'm concerned,

I know it's a dangerous time to be praising old rich white billionaires too much, but as far as I'm concerned, if we're tearing down statues, this guy, David Sengal, is who we should be putting up instead. He's one of the all time great Americans, and he said it's a principal thing. It's a culture thing. The thing's gotta be $1.50, and other companies might go,

this is $1.50, is there a way we can up it to $1.75 and make the extra 25 cents? And for him, it's about setting a standard. The principle of the place is, it always has to be $1.50 for a hot dog and a soda, and we have to keep that in place so we make sure we don't slip on our principles in other areas.

Right. And so there was a point where it stopped being, they were taking too much of a bath on it, so what he did was he went, okay, what are the changes we have to make? Fountain soda instead of canned soda. That saves us a couple pennies, right? Let me renegotiate with the manufacturer,

the buns and the condiments. That saves me a couple pennies. And then they learned how to make their own hot dogs. The hot dogs they sell are now their own hot dogs, which they also sell frozen, and he was like, I figured out how to get the price down just enough that we could still sell this for $1.50, and we're not making money,

but we're losing a little bit less because we're never gonna raise that fucking price. You're right, it used to be a Hebrew national, and they switched over to the Kirkland brand maybe a 10 years ago or so. And it's better now. It's great, it's a better hot dog. It's a better hot dog.

Like that's another thing is, so many of the Kirkland Signature products are not just equal to the name brands, but in many cases are better than the name brands. Yeah, it's true. And Mitch, I'm curious, the food court, I don't know, had you had, I know you were, it was your maiden voyage

to shopping at Costco solo, but had you been to the Costco food court before? I know you have for the Slices Rider pizza tournament, you had some Costco pizzas, certainly. And you talked about having those pizzas a lot on craft services tables, right? Yes. I think that the, so I went after I went shopping,

which I don't know if that was a smart idea. I actually was stood in line with my fucking cart of food, but it just seemed like the best way to do it with my cart of food. And then, and then Nick, I did a similar thing to you. I got, I actually got the same exact order. I got a hot dog. I got a hot dog with ketchup and mustard,

and I got a slice of cheese pizza. And it came with that soda, which I, the hot dog came with that soda, which I did not know. And I got a fruit smoothie, the berry smoothie. The soda was kind of, the soda was another kind of anxiety inducing thing, because I was like, oh God, just using a fucking,

like a soda fountain seemed scary to me. And so that kind of scared the shit out of me, but I still got myself a diet Pepsi out of there. Great ice, by the way. Gotta give them credit for that. They got some good ice in that. Unbelievable ice. Great, great, great ice.

It's a good fountain. And they don't have straws anymore. They have like flip back covers. So you said- Oh, interesting. My place still had straws, individually packaged straws that were behind the counter. No straws, just the, which honestly, didn't miss them.

You know, it was just, you could flip the back, and the same thing for the berry smoothie. You just kind of flipped the top of it, and then you could just sip right out of the side there. Honestly, the route we should go. Yeah, we should get rid of some straws. Come on, who cares, easy. I would prefer that.

I would prefer that, yeah. I think that the cheese pizza's good. We talked about it on the slices, right. It's a really well done slice of pizza. The cheese, specifically, there's so much cheese on there. Very cheesy. And it's like a good hockey rink pizza. And honestly, the hot dog is like a great ballpark hot dog.

It's just, they're both very well done. Nick, I had an easier time with the mustard. They were both packaged in little containers. But did you get, like, did you have like a packet, or was it like a- It was like a little cup. Like some you dip in? Yeah, so I got the cup.

A little cup. I just put it in the fridge. A little cup. I just poured mine. The mustard was easy to pour on the hot dog, and then the ketchup was a little bit tricky for me to pour on to the hot dog. But I just poured on there, and it was great.

I was eating in my car right after I shopped, so I had some hand sanitizer in the car, so I sprayed my hands down. But I was paranoid, but I was also starving. So I took down the hot dog and the pizza right in a row, and they were both great. They're great. They're really, really good.

I mean, like, it's that sort of thing of like, I'm so happy getting that Costco hot dog that I can't see myself being much happier getting a hot dog anywhere else. You know what I mean? Like, I've had better hot dogs before, and we just went to Doghouse. Great dog.

Better than the Costco dog. Clearly a different tier of hot dog, but also a different price category. Right. A different experience. For $1.50. For $1.50, it's great. It's a great deal.

And I really loved it. And I got to say, I was drinking that with my diet Pepsi because I thought it was weird to have a smoothie as my chaser, basically, for my hot dog and my pizza. But when I got home and I drank that berry smoothie, it's good as hell. It's delicious. It's really, really, really good,

and it doesn't feel too heavy. It doesn't feel like too creamy. It feels like real fruit, and it just feels cold and icy, and it's really, really well done. Good ingredients. And I feel like Costco was very early in terms of total transparency with calories. Their food court menu is always visual.

You see the item, the price is listed, and the calorie count is listed. And that berry smoothie is probably the heaviest thing they have, is still, I would argue, lighter than most equivalent items at similar places. And it tastes so goddamn good. I mean, Mitch, you were talking about like, I don't know if I did things in the right order.

Should you eat before? Should you eat afterwards? I'm very zen about Costco. I think you need to find the way that you Costco best and not follow anyone else's order. But I do say almost without fail, I always first stop, go to the food court, get a berry smoothie, and that's what I sip while I'm going down the aisles,

making my purchases. Then I circle back around, do a little sit-down meal afterwards to unwind before I transport the stuff home. That's how I usually function. That's next level. I mean, because those lines can be a little bit of a weight, but they actually usually move pretty fast. So the smoothie to have in hand while you're shopping is,

I'm going to steal that. I will say, you guys both saying you had berry smoothie had me doubting myself. So I checked the photograph I took of the menu. It was indeed the fruit smoothie that I had. So it's interesting that within cities, they have different products, but the fruit smoothie for servings of fruit, as you mentioned,

they're very transparent about the calories, 230 calories. So a little bit indulgent, but a real great refreshing treat. I will also say that you talking about the menus being visual, it's a great point. And the visuals are like everything at Costco. They're huge. They're like the championship banners that you would hang in an arena,

just a gigantic poster of a hot dog saying that it's $1.50. Very tempting. And also it's got additional details. Like their photo of the pizza always seems to mention, or at least in my memory does, made with real Wisconsin cheese. Like they're very proud of their ingredients. They're very proud of their prices. I was talking about the difference between the $1.50 Costco hot dog

versus a $4 New York City street vendor hot dog, but similar with their pizza. You're looking at a $2 slice here, an under $2 slice. And that's a big honkin' slice. It's huge. You're talking it's a big pie, it's a big triangle, but also it's a pretty thick crust. It's got a lot of cheese on it, right?

I mean, you're getting a lot of every ingredient. And pretty much I would say your classic New York slice joint, not high end, is probably charging close to $4 a slice, or a little bit over now, for something that is much thinner and smaller than this. If you're looking for a better price of pizza, in New York City, you're going to a literal $0.99 pizza place, where part of what you're buying is the understanding

that the ingredients are not real, that you're probably eating bullshit and rat feces. In terms of the actual quality of the thing, the size of the thing, and the value of the thing, it's pretty insane what they offer. Yes, I agree. I fully agree. And I think the food court in and of itself is outstanding,

and if we were just evaluating the food court, I mean, that would be, for me, an easy Golden Plate Club member. But we are talking about the entire store. And so I will get into the Kirkland Signature grocery items I got. I will speed through all of these. Nick, just to make everyone clear, I was just munching on my last bit of Kirkland Signature stuff. So if you heard some crunching, that's what it was.

So the items I got, I'll start with the basics. Big, giant, three-pound sack of pistachios, because everything is in bulk there. It's gigantic. So it's just me and Natalie. So if we're going to get any food stuffs, it's got to be dry goods. It's got to be something that lasts.

Or it's got to be like a sauce with vinegar in it, something that'll keep, because just that volume, we're never going to get through if it's like, we're not going to get through 60 string cheeses before they spoil. Hey, you're talking to a very, very single man who buys bulk products from Costco. I get it. I mean, as much as I love buying shit from Costco,

every time I make a purchase, I'm very aware of how alone I am in the world and have to do the math of how many months of being alone in my apartment is it going to take to get through this. So my purchase decisions were steered in that direction towards things that will keep big old sack of pistachios and two big jars of Spanish olives.

They're pistachios, they're olives. They're good. They both get the job done. I think this is like as good as these things are in their basic form. The value is really remarkable. The ruby red grapefruit cups is another one I got and some ancient grains, probiotic granola.

Granola is fine. Not anything particularly notable. I will say this is one where I had a little bit of buyer's remorse because I was like, I don't know if I'm going to get through two pounds of granola before it goes stale. It's a lot of granola. But it's a quality granola.

It's a nice little clusters, which I like. I always like the chunks versus one that's a little bit too that's more like a little bit finer, a little bit more like an oatmeal, a little bit mealy. And the ruby red grapefruit cups, the things I'll say about this, this was maybe my least favorite item I got. They just had a little too much added sugar.

I like grapefruit nice and tart. And it is good grapefruit in little plastic cups and little containers sitting in their own juices. But they just poured a bunch of extra sugar in there and it's just a little bit too over-sweetened and syrupy for me. Now, the other items I got were taken bake frozen items. One is the former food court staple, the chicken bake.

They have taken it out as they have used the menu. I'm so glad because I need to talk about the chicken bake. I love the chicken bake. It's, if you are familiar with it, it's like a burrito-sized hot pocket. It's stuffed with chicken meat, mozzarella, provolone, bacon, what they call a Caesar dressing, and some green onion.

It's basically like a chicken pot pie that you eat like a burrito. Yeah, I mean, for Mitch, because Mitch hasn't presumably eaten one of these before, I think you're even underselling it. It's a wiger-sized hot pocket. All right. No, it is.

It's really big though. It's big. It's gigantic. It's about the length of their hot dog with bun. And about that total width. And there's melted cheese on the outside of it as well. And then inside, it's filled with a gooey, cheesy dressing along with chicken and bacon.

It's my favorite item. I understand that the hot dog is the mascot and the all-star, but for me, that's Costco's cheesy gordita crunch. That's their Frankenstein item that if you're the junk food connoisseur that we are, if you have a garbage belly, this thing is just hog heaven for me.

It's one of my favorite things to eat. It's really good. And I will say that it's interesting because at first it's almost puzzling because I mentioned it being akin to a pot pie. And so it kind of has that, it's kind of soupy, like you said. It's very gooey.

Very gooey. But it's also like cheesy. So it's kind of like the midpoint between a calzone. It's like kind of like an Italian version of a pot pie. It's weird, but it all works. It feels unique, as you said. I mean, it is. You have to use four or five different types

of fast food staples. To even explain what it is. And it's so fascinating that so much of the Kirkland brand is like, we're going to make an equivalent thing to what you know and try to do it at a high quality. And this feels like one of Costco's only like whole cloth inventions, you know? And that's why I think you really need

to take the time to spotlight it. Aside from the fact that if this is the kind of thing you like, either it sounds like the biggest turnoff in the world. It's so fucking gross. Why would I ever put that in your mouth? Or you're someone like us who bows at the altar of the cheesy gordita crunch, right? Yes.

And if you're in the latter camp, you'd probably love this fucking thing. And it's crazy that there's no real analog outside of the Costco food court. And no one's really ripped them off either. You would think someone else would do it. You know, what you mentioned about it being a departure from the more conventional offerings on Costco's lineup,

it makes me think of Scorsese, how he'd famously like, I'll make one for you, I'll make one for the studios, and then I'll make one for me. And I wonder if there was a Kirkland signature executive chef who was like, I'll make one for you. I'll make this hot dog. Then I'll make one for me. I have this crazy idea for a thing called a chicken bake.

This is his condoone. Yeah. He's like, I know it's not what the audience expects out of me, but some people are going to love it. And some people are going to protest. Right. But Michael Imperiali and the Sopranos is going to like it. I love it.

So the chicken bake, I think it's great. And I think it actually really, really works as a frozen item. I was skeptical because it said to heat it up in the microwave that that was the preferred preparation. I was worried it wasn't going to get crispy enough, but it was still very doughy and very crunchy. The only negative is that you're supposed to put it on a paper towel. And so I put it on a paper towel on top of a plate.

And heating up some of the, there was some leakage from the chicken bake. And the paper towel kind of lacquered to the underside of it. So it was a little bit, yeah. So I kind of had to carve that away. It was a little bit inelegant, but it still was delicious. It was very, very good. I also got the beef and Italian signature lasagna, which was a childhood favorite of mine.

This would be a thing we'd go from Costco and go to Costco and it'd be like, please, papa, can we get a beef and Italian sausage lasagna? Please, please, I'll be also happy. Your brother has dysentery. We have to keep moving. Also, did you hear the stock market crash for the first time? It's every word I see. So I got the, I loved it.

I remember it had a childhood memory of loving it and heated it up in the oven, had it for, had it as a heavy lunch yesterday. It was fucking delicious. Great, great lasagna. You put it in, cut a two inch slit in it, a Mitch length slit in the film, and you heat it up for 50 minutes. Then you take the film off, you heat it up for another 10 minutes to brown the cheese. Works like a charm.

Came out hot and gooey and so scrumptious, so indulgent, but a great, great meal. Ooey gooey, so soft and chewy, Nick. Ooey gooey, so soft and chewy for sure. What did you guys get from the Kirkland Signature side of things? Griffin, let's start with you. Sure. I have to admit, the take and bake stuff is kind of my biggest blind spot with Costco, mostly because I'm a very solitary man.

I don't even have a Natalie to cook for. And that stuff tends to come in very, very large portions. So I've always eyeballed like their take and bake mac and cheese and chicken alfredo, which always looks really good, but it's like huge. And I'm always worried it will spoil before I finish it. I had done their take and bake pizza before. And this time I got a box of their frozen pizzas. So the difference between the take and bake stuff and the frozen stuff is like that's mass

produced, you know, sort of packaged shit versus take and bake is prepared on the premises and then frozen. Same with their meats are butchered on the premises and a lot of their baked goods are baked on the premises. So I got a package of the elephant ear cookies, the fresh ones. I got a box of the frozen pizzas, but the Kirkland brand. I've tried the take and bake before and then I also got two, three pound drums of Kirkland signature coffee, one decaffeinated, one caffeinated.

I've been relying on a lot of coffee and quarantine, sometimes decaf for the sake of my tummy, just to get the psychosomatic experience of drinking something hot and brown. So I tested both of those out. And then my two favorite Kirkland snacks, just classics, the drum of peanut butter filled pretzel bites. I'm trying to hold it up and it's getting caught up in my virtual background. And the chocolate covered raisins, which I just think are two of their best standbys. Wow.

Wow. So what were the what were the winners of the bunch? Well, gotta say, started out my morning with a cup of each coffee. I've been trying to find a good coffee in lockdown. I'm not a coffee snob, but I feel like the coffee I've been making has not compared to my sort of local corner coffee places since I stopped going out. And I've gone through a couple different brands. I've gone through like a chock full of nuts and the other one that I'm forgetting.

But let me ask, do you grind in-house or do you buy it pre-ground? No, no, no. I'm buying like a little tin drum of pre-ground. As I said, not a snob, right? I'm just looking for basic level. But I have to say, this was the best coffee grounds I have drank in the last four months, the Costco Drums I got. Really rich, really flavorful, run through the exact same sort of basic

Mr. Coffee machine I've had in quarantine was really, really impressed with that. Peanut butter pretzels, chocolate raisins, still fucking killing it. Those things have never changed. I was just mostly testing for consistency, but those are great items, great bulk selection. Those last a long time and you're getting them at a good price. The pizza, I will say, was just above average. It was, you know, because the last time I was on reviewing Tombstone, for me, still the high water mark of frozen pizzas.

I got a lot of hate afterwards. People said, how dare you rate Tombstone that high? Red Baron's much better. I bought a Red Baron. I was talking about this with you guys. Red Baron tasted exactly the fucking same to the degree that I contend in a blind test test. I would not have been able to tell them apart. They were like identical.

So Red Baron is good. It is also very good. Tombstone, for me, that's sort of like the standard as good as you get in frozen pizzas. The Costco one is fine. It's large. I think it was $4 for $8 maybe, maybe $4 for $9. And it is closer to a Tombstone size, but it lacks a little flavor, both in the cheese and the sauce.

It's a little more bland, certainly much better than your Mama Celeste or anything like that. Your sort of bargain of basement $1 pizzas, which tend to be much smaller. And then I'm trying to think, was that all the items I listed? Maybe. Maybe I forgot. I think so. Yeah. Yeah, you commented on the peanut butter pretzels and the chocolate cover raisins.

Because of the inventory. Yeah, I wish my location had the chicken bake. It did not. I know they briefly were selling frozen, pre-packaged chicken bakes, which I tried and were not as good. I think they just continued it because for whatever reason that didn't translate. But the fact that they're still making them on site and leaving them for take and bake gives me some encouragement

that the item will come back in full force once we are living in a post-Corona society. Well, we can only hope so. I just want to return to one thing you said earlier at the top of your rundown, which was you were talking about the Costco coffee. And I am someone. I am a little bit more of a coffee snob. But I drink Costco coffee just as a value proposition in general. Not just coffee.

It's not just coffee or snob about you fucking snob. All right. All right. Anyway, so I have this, but I do do a home grind. I do have a Baratza Burr grinder. Yeah. And I have an OXO coffee maker. I was like, I have coffee twice a day.

I'll spend a little bit of money and have a nice coffee experience. But I get the whole beans from Costco and I grind them up. And you know what? It's a great cup of coffee. It's great. It's really good. Yeah. I'm really impressed.

And another thing I want to say, their meats are good too. Like I don't cook. I have not purchased bulk meat from Costco myself, but I've certainly had friends who have prepared those items for me. Julia Child famously bought her meat from Costco. Was always a big proponent of this is high quality stuff. And just walking by it today, I was trying to take note of different values as much as I could.

Entire fresh rotisserie chicken, $4.99. Yes. That's the hot chicken they have, I think, is another loss leader. But you can get that from the hot case. And yeah, especially if you've got a family that's an incredible value. But also, their butchered meats, which you mentioned butchered in-house, I don't ever buy them because I just can't justify buying like four T-bone steaks. Same here.

Never bought them myself. Tasted it, never bought it myself. Right. But I know they do have quality product there. Mitch, let's get into what you got. All right. Here's the things I got that I didn't try for today. I got myself a little slat of Diet Coke's, some spin drifts,

the half iced tea, half lemonade, or the Nick Weiger, as you call it, the spin drift version. And then I got myself also some Gatorade Zero Glacier Freeze. And some pressed juice. And then also a thing of Greek yogurt. I didn't get to those. Those are in my fridge. Well, those aren't even Kirkland items.

You're just talking about things. They're not Kirkland. I'm just telling you my whole order. I also got a big screen TV, 70-inch, put it on the Doughboy's card. I mean, I bought Charmin Extra Soft. You know, I got that in bulk because I've been shitting up a ton in quarantine. I should mention, I mean, look, this isn't really on topic,

but another thing is like, you know, I got a bad tummy. I always go to Costco for buying bulk lactate equivalent and probiotics. And they're like a good fucking deal and a high quantity. It's nice to have those items in bulk, much like toilet paper, and not be worried you're going to run out every other week. Another thing I bought there, which I'd never seen before, Brita filters, which certainly I've been relying on that a lot in lockdown. And their deal was like $20 for, I think, six Brita standard-sized filters in a pack.

They were Kirkland branded filters, but that's a much better deal than like, I think it's 13 for two if you're buying the official Brita ones. Right. Yeah, there are some, I mean, other things that you can get there, you know, vitamins, supplements, akin to what you were saying. You want like ibuprofen, get yourself enough ibuprofen to last for three years there, or until it expires. Obviously, you know, we know all the things like the your toothpaste and soaps, but also a lot of times gift cards. And this was more of a thing, you know, back when it was safe to ever dine out, but we would get like, you know,

two, you get $250 gift cards for California Pizza Kitchen bundled for $80. And it's just like, well, that's great. That's 20% off of our bill for, you know, the next three times we go to California Pizza Kitchen. Like that's like a remarkable value so that they have a lot of things like that. I don't know where the numbers are at for it right now, but for a while they had iTunes gift cards that were $15 for a $20 gift card. Yeah. Like shit like that that you could just spend on anything. You can very easily make your membership back just on those sorts of things alone. Absolutely. And one that I always used to use pre movie pass, rise and fall of movie pass,

and also now pre, you know, AMCA lists, but also pre movie theaters are shut down, or they ever coming back. There was a hack where you could buy bulk movie tickets from Costco. And in like New York and LA, where movie tickets are unreasonably expensive relative to the rest of the country, I get these deals where it was like $25 for four vouchers, and you could use them at a major theater chain for anything. There's shit like that. Like there's a lot of stuff on the website too. I bought furniture from Costco. I mean, good deals. There's, there's coaches there. I mean, when I was, when I was looking for a coach, it would have been great to just see that because for, you know, under a thousand bucks, you can get us a

whole sectional. But here's, here's, here's the rundown of things that I got and ate today. Yes. Here's everything. I got myself some blueberry muffins. I got myself some chocolate chocolate chip muffins. And I'll get, I'll get back to those when I get to check out. I got myself some organic dried tart cherries. I got a gigantic bag of organic tortilla chips restaurant style. I got some Kirkland signature organic salsa. I got myself some Kirk Kirkland signature organic kombucha, ginger lemonade. I also got myself some Kirkland signature turkey, turkey breast, sliced turkey breast. I got chunky guacamole, Kirkland signature individual packed. So it's all kind of like, you get, you get one of, you know what I mean,

you get what you get one of each instead of a big thing where it would have gone bad as soon as I opened it. I got Kirkland signature trail mix. And then I also got some Kirkland signature chocolate almond ice cream bars. Now that covers everything. This, this morning I cut myself half of a blueberry muffin, half of a chocolate chocolate chip muffin, put a little piece of butter on each of them, microwaved it for about a minute. And Nick, it was like heaven again. I, it was, it was, it was delicious. It was like, it reminded me of old school Dungadones. Just, just tasty, tasty muffins, nice and hot butter on them. It was, it was great. 1,000 calories to start off the day right there. It was good, good stuff. Oh, that was the other item I forgot

that I purchased was the, the sort of onsite baked, alfinear cookies, which I think are a really underrated item. Yeah. These muffins were, they were, they were good. And there were so many of them. And I'll, I'll, I'll explain what happened when I got to check out. But there were so many of them and the expiration for a lot of them were like that day or the day before. And there was just a table of them, so many of them. The tart, the, the organic dried tart cherries were pretty good. You know, they weren't anything special, but you know, they, they did the job and they were pretty tasty. With the turkey, I made myself a little sandwich today, Nick. Maddie Smith gave me a loaf of sourdough bread that he made himself. And he sliced, and I sliced up a couple slices of

the sourdough bread, put some cheddar cheese on it and put the turkey in there and made myself a turkey cheddar melt. Pasto boys, guess Maddie Smith from way back on our Togo's episode. Wow. Yeah. It's a big, big sourdough. He's a big home sourdough starter guy. Did, did, did a turkey melt. Delicious. Like fantastically good. It was a great turkey cheddar melt. And with that, I had the tortilla chips and the salsa, the salsas and the guacamole. The guacamole, the guacamole is good. The guacamole is just straight up very good for a store bought guac. It's great. The salsa could be better. And I'm sure that there's other kinds. This is like a big giant. It comes in a two pack, a big fucking bottle of it. The chips I didn't love as much. They were a little too like,

they said restaurant style. I thought they were going to be like a little bit more it. They were too corny, Nick. They were just a little bit too corny. Like this podcast, there was just too much. It was, it was, it was, it was just a little too much corn going on. You know what I mean? Like, I like, there was just a lot of like, a lot of texture. And I, and, and so there was a different brand of tortilla chips that I didn't get that were Kirkland signature, but that was a three pound bag. And it was so giantly big. This bag is also gigantically big. And I'll never finish all of them or even come close, but it's what I had to do. And then the kombucha, that organic kombucha, which I had with this meal was fantastic. The trail mix was great. Classic trail mix. It

has M&Ms in the trail mix, which is a huge plus. And then also something that I was just making while we were doing all of this, Panko coated shrimp, Nick, some frozen shrimp. I tossed that in the air fryer. This is a frozen, some frozen apps. And those, that was really well worked really great in the air fryer. I had no, I had no dipping sauce for it, but it was really good. Here was my situation. I got all these items. I got to the front. And I also, I also bought, I needed mustard, but the only thing I could buy was a Heinz picnic pack, which I got, which comes with two catchups, a mustard and relish. It comes with all those. You can't, you can't even get like a Kirkland signature gigantic mustard. You have to get all those together. I asked the signature

mustard. They did not. I get to the front counter. Vanessa helps me out there. This is my first time and check out. I get in trouble twice, Nick. Once the turkey goes through and it was one single like one single package of turkey. And she said, you can't just buy one of these. You have to have, you have to have, they're three connected together. When I went to the, when I went to the free, the fridge, there was only just one, there was one of them sitting on top and I thought like, oh, you can either buy them in bulk or just buy a single one. I didn't realize that assumption. Someone had just ripped one off. Yeah. But she very much made it. She, she was suspicious that I had done it, which I did not. I did not break it off. I just, there was one on top and she was like,

and I was like, can you just charge me for the one and can you charge me for the three and I'll just have the one? That's fine. And she's like, no, we can't do that. And so I was like, all right. And she's like, you can go back and get it. I'll charge you for it. You can go back and get it and bring it back to your car. So I said, all right. And then another thing that happened is I just gotten blueberry muffins and she's like, you need to have two of these. They're two for, they're two for one. You have to, you have to, and I was like, oh, I don't want the second one. She's like, no, you have to take it. So I had to go, I had to go back into the, I had to go back into the store and get myself a three pack of sliced turkey, which I just is so much turkey. I don't need it.

And then also I had to get myself another thing of, of muffins, which is why I got the chocolate chocolate chip muffins. And, but that was kind of, it's kind of crazy to me that I was like, I'm just going to give them away. I guess, you know what I mean? I'm going to give them to someone or, or, or maybe swing by and give them to some people in need or something like that. I don't know what to do. It's too much food. I don't want to discredit your experience, Mitch, but some of this feels a little Vanessa specific. You know, I took particularly the, the sort of holding you to the two for one deal. I feel like most of those cases they have in the system a price for what it costs for one. They don't force you to take the second. And the turkey

thing is very much, uh, not your problem. But as you also said, you, you went there on a pretty stressed day. Yeah. Yeah. You got to put yourself in Vanessa's mindset. I mean, she's been dealing with Karen's all day being like, oh, I know. I'm going to take my mask off. I won't go into the Costco wearing a mask. Hey, Karen, get out of here. Nick, it's funny you say that because when I was in line, a lady cut in front of me in line and she didn't mean to do it. And I said, uh, excuse me, there, there's a line. She said, Oh God. And then she went and just like disappeared down an aisle. And then when I got to the front of the line, she had been like, she was at checkout. She had gotten in like some other weird fucking. So there's a possibility.

She was a bit of a Karen, Nick. She might have been saying things like, was she saying things like, I'm a Karen, I'm entitled. Look at me, a Karen. And there was a guy who went viral, I think yesterday from when we're recording now for screaming at an old lady in Costco about, uh, not wearing a mask that he wasn't wearing a mask and she couldn't tell him what to do. And Costco escorted him, escorted him off the premises and I believe revoked his membership. I feel like Costco is pretty good at just being like, this is a no asshole zone. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. That's why Vanessa was on high alert there, Mitch. Yeah. Also, I think you, I think you were trying to pull a fast one on her. I think you broke up

that, those muffin boxes separated that turkey. With the muffin boxes, there was no breaking up. There's just, you have to buy a separate whole thing of muffins. Like it's two for one. And she said, you have to get them. Mitch had half of a raw turkey in his hand claimed it just came this way, stripped down the middle. There was one thing I did not mention. Those almond chocolate ice cream bars were fucking fantastic. Wow. They were really, really good. So the almond bars, the kombucha's, which I got to say one of the kombucha's was busted open. It was leaking. When I got home, I had to toss it, but whatever. It's a 14 pack or some shit. I thought like, if you just, if you gave me that, a blindfolded thing, Griffin, like you're saying, and we're like, this is a fancy

kombucha that people pay $10 where I'd be like, sure, I believe it. It's, it's, it's really good quality. The salsa was good. I would like to try another one. Guac was great. Trail mix, pretty great. Tortilla chips, want to try a different kind. Muffins were good. Just a lot of good quality stuff. And the shrimp, the shrimp, I got the shrimp right in front of me. Pretty good. Good afflux. If I can also just quickly cite two things I've tried the past, but not too recently. The, the Kirkland brand beer and wine are both good. I've had, I've had a number of different Kirkland wine of varietals. I have had the Kirkland beer. I've had like, they're just straight up like, like their jeabass attempt at a macro brew was totally

fine. And I've also had, I believe they're bourbon. They have some spirits and so the, some of the Kirkland spirits are fine. Now the Kirkland spirits are not always necessarily cheaper than the real deal. Yeah. What do you mean, Kirkland spirits? You know, I mean, there's, come on, some sort of ghost. A big, a big warehouse is a good, is a, is a good, is a prime haunting spot. So. Yeah. You never know. You could hear, you know, at a fucking whole bunch of paper towels topple over. You look over your shoulder like, what was that? There's no one there. Who knows? Maybe a mischievous spirit was behind it. Fucking terrifying. But no, they're, they're no ghost.

A Costco at night would actually be a good location for a horror movie. I agree. Yeah. And I'm sure they would end up giving you more scares than the standard horror movie at a cheaper ticket price. The Costco in Manhattan does not have liquor. That seems to vary based on location. I think that sometimes has to do with certain laws or where they're located in relation to other things. But, but yes, it doesn't tend to be cheaper. It will often be a larger volume. Like you can get a larger bottle. The beer and wine does tend to be cheaper. The beer in particular, you can get a big crate. I've had like a Kirkland variety pack once where I had a couple different types of beer and they were all good. And they're a wine they take like a lot of pride in. It was

a big section of this CNBC special I watched last night. But they're responsible for like 50% of wine sales in the United States of America. It's remarkable. And, and, and, you know, with a lot of international wines importing wines, but they also take their own wines very, very seriously. Right. And obviously a lot of businesses themselves shop from Costco. So, you know, a lot of wine that's resold in restaurants, I'm sure is purchased on site and that accounts for some of their volume. Well, we should get to our final thoughts. Yes. Do you think before this is all over like Karen Gillian will pull a Karen? Do you think like, uh, do you think a Karen? I hope not. Have your names Karen. It's just your dooms to do it. That'd be a real heel

turn. That's probably like a really half-assed pitch you could sell right now. Like the equivalent of a, like there's like a two week window where you could sell that like half baked idea of, you know, all the Karens of the world are turning into Karens. Funny or die would have made that yesterday. They would have. And I would have gotten paid $75 to direct and edit it. And, and they, and they also would have, they would have broken social distancing. Yes. And Karen Gillian would have been paid $500,000 for two shots. Yes. Don't forget that. Yeah. Well, we should get to our final thoughts on Costco. If you check the runtime, this is an appropriately, uh, jumbo sized episode, but you know, I think Costco warrants it. And so

that's, that's a good way to bring it in. Yeah. So here's what we'll do. We'll go around. We'll give our closing assessment, our closing remarks on Costco and then end it by giving it a score. And because it is a grocery store month, because it is friendly green grocer, Mitch's grocery store month, we are not rating it out of five forks, but out of 10 carts, Griffin Newman, your assessment, your score. Wait, Griffin, quickly. Yeah. Overall impressions, including name and mascot, parking produce, snacks, frozen snacks, cold snacks, slash drinks, checkout, hoity-toidiness, bagging in carts, price, and then a hot bar, but that's disqualified. Go ahead. Those are all the categories. You don't have to yet,

you don't have to break down every each individual one. It just, if something notable speaks to one of those categories, you can say it. It's all important, Nick. Yeah, can you listen for me one more time, please? I need it. I need the full list. This is very serious. One overall impressions, including a name and mascot, two parking, three produce, four snacks, five frozen snacks, six cold snacks, slash drinks, seven checkout, eight hoity-toidiness, nine bagging in carts, 10 price, and then also we can take, hot bar is eliminated, but we can take into consideration the food court. Yeah, I think that takes the place of it. Okay, I feel prepared now. Look, this episode has been in the works for almost four or five years.

It started originally with me badgering mutual friends of ours to suggest to you guys that I would be a good guest and acting like it was an impartial third-party opinion. I'm glad we finally made this happen, but I definitely look. I've had stress dreams about making sure this episode lives up to the standard of quality that Costco has given me in my life. Everything I think Costco has provided me with, not just the sort of peace of mind of knowing that I've done shopping that will last me for a good chunk of while, not just the state of relaxation I enter into once I walk past those big doors, but also I think the basic underlying ethics of the company. I feel like one of the things I like about the Doughboys podcast

is that you tend to talk about the corporate culture of these places and the owners and the climates that they create around their businesses and all of that. And Costco is very famous for having one of the best wages, $20 an hour is the average, as of the special I watched, which was in 2012. They have full health care for all their employees. And it's also based on a level of transparency that they say their business model is based on the fact that I save the numbers here. They are 30% cheaper than most of their competitors in the grocery space, 50% cheaper than department stores with equivalent items. And the way they accomplish that is they never mark anything up more than 15%. Now what they're banking on is that when you're there,

you'll buy a greater number of items. And that's where they make their money back. But there's no place where they're sticking it to you. And as I was watching this man, James Sengel, I said his name wrong earlier, the founder who resigned in 2012 is still alive talking about the culture. He said, that's what it's about. It's about the culture first and foremost. We have to protect that. We can't slip. There is a discipline. And part of that is treating people well so that they like working here. They have very little turnover. People really work up the ranks at Costco, going from being checkout people to being the most powerful wine buyer in the world. Wow.

Specific example in the special I watched last night. I'm forgetting her name. But I think all that's important because people at Costco tend to seem happy. A Vanessa aside, a crazy, crowded day aside. She was nice. I liked Vanessa. Look, I spent the last two days interfacing with a woman named Pam, having some of the best customer service I've ever received in my life trying to renew my membership. I need to shout out Pam. I need to shout out Pam.

Yeah. For me, am I a little in the bag for this place because of my history with it, that 10 years, a golden run of Costco transforming me and making me into a better man? Yes, absolutely. Am I somewhat self-conscious of the fact that I think I tend to overrate things every single time I come on this podcast? Yes. Is it maybe a Doughboy's bump because I'm excited to be on the show? Possibly. But then I look back and I consider that you've asked me to rank three of my favorite things of all time, Tombstone Pizza, Costco, and Crunch. It's not my fault that we're talking about a holy trinity here.

Overall, the place is perfect. The name tells you everything you need to know. They are a cost-saving company. They have no mascot, but they don't need one. Mascots are a distraction. Parking, I assume is good. I don't use it. I bring my granny cart. Produce, 10 out of 10. Snacks, 10 out of 10. Frozen snacks, 10 out of 10. Cold drinks, 10 out of 10. Check out a breeze. They don't bag it. You've got to bring your own stuff. There's a learning curve, but once you learn it, it feels better for our planet. Are they hoity-toity? No. They're invested in the working man, woman, and non-binary person. The carts are huge. The prices can't be beat. Costco, 10 out of 10. Wow. Spirited remarks from Griffin Newman, 10 out of 10.

I just watched Network for the first time, and that was very similar to the I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore speech, except you're happy, I think. Yeah, I get kind of a regis energy from that. Yes. I'm so overjoyed, and I want as much of it as you can give me. It's the opposite of the network speech. Please, more. I want to keep taking it. Can I ask, before you guys give your scores, so I know what is at stake, different ranking system for grocery store month, is there a club it could possibly enter into, the equivalent of the Golden Play Club or the Platinum Play Club? Yes. There is, but I forgot what it was. Do you remember what it was, Mitch? The Golden Cart Club,

we'll just call it that for now. But is there also a Platinum Play Club, a Platinum Cart Club? Excuse me. Yes, there is a Platinum Cart Club. Okay. So potentially, if it got three tens, it would be entering into the Platinum Play Club. I just want to set up the stakes here. By the way, sometimes when you go to the grocery store, I feel like I got myself a Platinum Cart with how heavy it is to push around. Because one of the wheels is bad. Jesus. Nick, why don't you go first then? You want me to go? Yeah. All right, I'll go. Because like Griffin, I am someone with a lifelong allegiance to Costco. Hell yeah.

The brand that I maybe have the most intense brand loyalty to is Kirkland Signature. I love the Kirkland Signature line of products. Hell yeah. I have had Kirkland Signature pants. I like Kirkland Signature. I think they make, they do good stuff. Were they supersized? The pants? Yeah, for me, they had to be. I found an October 11, 2017 tweet at Nick Weiger, I want to work at Costco so bad. Wow. It's true. I have that feeling. I feel like that's maybe, I don't know, maybe that's the second career for me. I think I would love to work at Costco. I'm glad that it seems like the workers there mostly have positive experiences. I do know also

speaking to the CEO and their corporate practices. It's not a perfect corporation. I've heard some, there's some negativity, I know from some of the workers that regarding how they were at responding to reopening under the COVID-19 pandemic. They got bad press under COVID, but let's also acknowledge, I'm not trying to let them off the hook here. Extraordinary times and Costco was hit really hard by COVID. Sophie and Hawken, my friends who lived two blocks away, were saying that the Costco lines for those first couple of weeks were literally blocks long. They would extend three or four blocks across Manhattan. It was out the door when I was there the other day. It was crazy.

Yeah. The first time I went, which was three weeks into lockdown, it was still like basically 90 minutes to get inside. So yes, people's panic buying immediately went to the bulk retailer and Costco bore the brunt of that. But I do also know that the CEO takes, has a much less lucrative compensation package than a lot of other CEOs. And that I think also speaks to their corporate ethics. I think that the food there is great. I love everything I can get there. The value, as a value proposition, it is remarkable. I think you immediately make your money, get your money's worth from that $60 annual membership fee. I love shopping there. I don't get stressed out from it. Like Griffin, I find it kind of calming to be inside this gigantic

space and to have the time to kind of get my bearings and go through my list and make sure I have all the provisions I need for the next several weeks before my return trip. Love the food court. If the food court, again, if the food court was just a chain, if it was just Costco and it was just a window, you ordered a $1.50 hot dog and a $1.99 slice of pizza from along with some sweet treats. To me, that's a, that's a four and a half to five fork chain in of itself. And you add everything else to that. I'm with Griffin Newman, 10 carts for Costco. How do you do better than this? The gold standard. Go ahead, Mitch.

So when it comes to like specialty products, I do think Trader Joe's has some of the best tasting specialty products. I just want to say that. Costco is a place that goes large, Nick. It's a bulk store. You go big here. You go big at Costco. You know what? And almost every fast of my life, I'm a big man, except for one exclusion. What's that? His chicken bake. It's some joke from God, apparently. That's really funny to make me big in every other place and he's up there cackling with his white beard and his flowing robes. You know what, God? Choke on that fucking beard. You hear me? Fucking choke on it.

Fucking funny joke, you piece of shit. No, but also fuck you, Satan. I don't like either of you. Purgatory, Nick. That's the place for you. You just sit there and you don't do anything. Yeah, I'd be fine. I could wait out eternity in Purgatory, no problem. Your heaven looks like Purgatory, basically. Sit and do nothing. I don't have a lot of experience with Costco. Like I said, BJs was my spot, but I do like this type of store. I have to say, for me, it was crowded. It was crazy, but I also have to take into consideration what was going on now. The parking is okay. It's not as bad as Trader Joe's is. There is no bagging and I agree with Griffin that it's

better for the environment. Maybe having a granny car is the way to do it. But there's a learning curve there. I'll grant you that. You're a first timer. I'm going to say this. When I was there, it was exciting. There's a lot of stuff there that is great to buy in bulk. You can get a TV and a couch if you want to. It just seems like a place that, if it went hand in hand with a Trader Joe's or something like that, I think it would be like, oh, it's a great one to stop. You know what I mean? And Mitch, I'm not trying to weigh your vote here, but just imagine, close your eyes and imagine being there pre-COVID samples lining every aisle. A taste of this, a taste of that, always from a friendly face served with a smile.

And I'm the friendly greengrocer Spoonman this month. And that does help to score. Listen, Griffin, it was between an 8.5 and a 9 for me. Hold on. I'm not done yet. And I'm just really trying to figure out what to do here. I feel like there's a thing of like, an Albertsons or a Ralphs to me is like, that to me is like the sort of supermarket or grocery store I want to go to to just, you get what you got to get and then you get out of there. There's an issue with Costco that what you get is super-sized. The turkey issue and the muffin issue. There's going to be a lot of wasted food here. You know what I mean? Like that's an issue I have. That being said, I think the original products are really good. And I think it makes me

excited to be in there and to like stock up on stuff I need that can last a long time and also get quality. Like it made me want to cook things, which when I go to a supermarket, I barely ever feel that way. It's an inspirational store. It just covers so much stuff. There was the Spindrifts had the iced tea lemonade, which I never see. Nick, you made a good point though, that you're going to go in there one day and they're going to have some stuff that you want. And then other days it's going to be different stuff. So they change up their stock. Yeah. They change up their stock. That being said, it's a fun grocery store. I'm excited to put that $60 fee on my Doughboys card. And I'm going to go back for sure. Sorry, Nick, by the way, I put on

the Doughboys card. We're supposed to talk about this before the episode record. Can you put me in an awkward spot here? That being said, I'll give it nine shopping carts, Griffin. It's in the Platinum Cart Plate. It's in the Platinum Cart Club. Wow. Is it though? Yes. Because that translates to four and a half if we're reducing it. The threshold for the Platinum Plate Club is you have to have five, five, uh, forks all around. Ten carts. All right, you happy? Wow. Welcome to the Platinum Cart Club, Costco. You're the first member. And hey, that brings us to our segment. I've got a food-related exam and Mitch and Griffin must compete for superior, and hey, that brings us to our segment. I've got

a food-related exam and Mitch and Griffin must compete for superiority. It's the first edition of Slop Quiz. And hey, Griffin, we cooked this up for you. And your honor, you share a name with two classic sitcom characters, of course, Peter Griffin from Family Guy and Newman from Seinfeld. So the topic or Slopik for Slop Quiz is Family Guy Restaurant or Seinfeld Restaurant. I'll name a fictional eatery you buzz in and tell me which show it's from by answering either Griffin or Newman. So if it's from Family Guy, say Griffin. If it's from Seinfeld, you say Newman. All right, we understand the rules. I'll say I've been binging sitcoms hard, even pre-quarantine. I did watch every episode of Seinfeld late last night. Wow. So hopefully that

is an asset and it's stuck in my head and it helps me in this game. I might do the same thing. Will it give you a leg up? We're about to find out. So buzz in with your name when you're ready to answer and Griffin, this will be a little confusing for you because that is also how you answer a question, but I think we'll write it out. Okay, first up, Monks Cafe. Newman! Oh, fuck. I fucked it up. I think that's a tie. I think you, wait, you Mitch you buzzed in, right? Yes. Did you buzz in or did you just say Griffin? But I buzzed in with my answer by accident. I said Mitch. He said Mitch. Okay. Which is how you're supposed to buzz in.

What's your answer, Mitch? Newman. All right, and Griffin, what's your answer? My answer is Newman. I'm going to give that to Griffin because he did buzz in with his name by saying Newman. That's what the fuck? And I think he was first. He was like a second after me. I'm going to make this game simpler. Because the two types of answers are the two parts of my name, I'm going to make my buzz in crunch. Okay, so that's fair. Griffin will buzz in with crunch. I will give the first one to Mitch. Because that's my third name, the king of crunch. Griffin will buzz in with crunch, Mitch will buzz in with Mitch, and you will answer Griffin or Newman. Mitch, you take the first one, Monks Cafe. That's fair. Second one, the drunken clam.

Mitch. Crinch. Go ahead, Mitch. Griffin. That's right. The drunken clam is the pub from Family Guy. I immediately forgot my name was Crinch. I was struggling to remember how I buzzed it. That's all right. We got a bunch more questions. I think you can make up this deficit. Next up, next question. Next fictional food restaurant. Food restaurant. Sometimes a fucking Trump thing. Food restaurant. That's what Trump would tweet. It is. Talk about Graydon Carter's bad food restaurants. You're a Trump. You're a Trump. You don't have time to agree with your jokes.

We're in the headspace. We're very competitive. We're doing a game, Nick. We're doing a game. All right, I have to say, and I felt self-conscious that I said something that the orange buffoon himself would tweet out. The next one. You're getting dumber. Mendes. Oh, Crinch. Go for it, Griffin. No men. That is correct. Mendes is from Seinfeld. It's where Bannia wants to go. It's two to one. Soup's not a meal. McBurger Town. Mitch. Yes. It's me, Peter Griffin. That's right. McBurger Town is from Family Guy.

You know, hey, Nick, you know how I could tell? How's that? It's a bad joke. Next up, Woo's Chinese Restaurant. Crinch. Good, Griffin. No men. Actually, Woo's Chinese Restaurant is from Family Guy. Wow. Fuck. All right. I thought it was Seinfeld, too, maybe. There is a Chinese restaurant famously in Seinfeld, but it is unnamed.

Oh, yeah. All right. All right. Mitch has three. Griffin has one. Five questions left. Next up, Paisanos. Crinch. Griffin. No men. That is correct. Paisanos is from Seinfeld. It's three to Mitch. Next up, Pomodoro's. Crinch. Wow. That was, I think you both buzzed in at the same time. I don't know how to resolve this. Is it over? How about we just end it? What if we say our answers at the same time on three to one?

Say your answers at the same time, and I will count it for, if you're right, I'll give you a point. All right. Three, two, one. Cleveland. Wait, what did you say? Cleveland. Oh. I think Mitch should be deducted a point, because white people aren't allowed to say Cleveland anymore. That's official.

Oh, God. It's asset Cleveland. You are both wrong. Pomodoro's also from Seinfeld. Wow. Another Italian restaurant they go to. Wow. Okay. We have three left. I'm going to leave the score at three for Mitch, two for Griffin. He old pube. Crinch. I got it before him. To me, from my feed, it seemed like Griffin was just a hair before you. That's insane.

Just a pew before you, if you will. Was there for real a delay? Are you being an asshole? It seemed like he was like, from my video app, my video chat app, it seemed like Griffin was slightly- This is bullshit. Look, why don't we do a three to one countdown again? You can say your answers at the same time. All right. All right.

Two, three, two, two, one. Peter Griffin. You are both correct. That's insane. The deficit remains one. It is, the old pube is a pub that Griffin- I can't wait for people to listen to this episode to see that I was like a full second ahead of Griffin. Well, it can be edited however Emma likes.

Oh, okay. That's what it is. All right. Next one. Maybe she'll push you back a little further. Yeah. I'll say on my end, you were like two minutes after me. All right. We have two left. Okay. I'm very surprised that Yale pube was not a Seinfeld level joke. All right. Griffin, you can, you're still in the game. You can make up this deficit and even take the lead if you get these next two. Okay.

Here's the next, here's the next clue. Reggie's diner. Crunch. Fuck. Go ahead, Griffin. No man. You are correct. Reggie's diner is from Seinfeld. The Bizarro diner?

George gets exiled, but it also serves as a Bizarro diner in a subsequent episode. Perfect. All right. This last one will settle it. Tide. You guys are tied. This last one will settle it. And just, you know, this one's not easy. All right. Here we go. Here's the final clue. Family guy or Seinfeld.

The restaurant is Cleveland's deli. Crunch. Bitch. Go ahead, Griffin. Griffin. He was clearly ahead of you. No, he was not. I watched the entire quibi waiting for you to buzz in.

He was so far ahead of you. No, he was not. There's going to be a delay or you're fucking with me. I heard Crunch a full second before the other one was debatable. This one was clearly Griffin was ahead of you. Trash. You got to get your internet fixed. I watched two episodes of my internet is waiting for you.

All right, Griffin. What's your answer? Why? I believe it's a Griffin. Is it not? That is correct. Cleveland's deli is owned by Cleveland in the in family guy. And that means Griffin takes it by a score of five to four. You win. Slop quiz. This is this. This is the this was the most rigged game show in the history of game shows, including the answers were my name.

You think it's right? Are we going to have a fucking Senate hearing about this? Yes. I'm going to be sweating under the hot lights like Ray Fiend. Look, Emma will consult the master zoom record, right? She should be able to divine the timestamps. For me, it seemed like this is more egregious than it is. It's more egregious than quiz show wise.

You're it's fucked up. I think I think that I think the table speak for itself. You think you fed me answers? I think that I think that he gave you the buzz in before me on multiple occasions. I think it's fucked up. Hey, I'm a Jew. OK, quiz show riggings don't usually go in my people's favor. Wow, great point.

Yeah, I mean, the Gentile will have to win more on the next the next episode of Slop Quiz. I never benefited for the systemic privilege of game shows. My dirty Jew blood. Just like a restaurant fire feedback. Let's open up the feedback and hey, we have a voicemail today. I'm going to share this one with you guys. Wow. Here we go.

Griffin. The boys, it's Liz and Des Moines. I'm wondering if there are places you go to in the summer over other seasons and vice versa. It's getting to be the dog days of summer. So are there places you go to in the winter and never go to in the spring? Or do you have kind of seasonal a rotation of fast food joints that you hit up? Let me know. Thanks for the show.

Bye. Liz from Des Moines. Do you guys do you guys as fast food patronage habits change by season at all? Any places you frequent more often in the summer months? I was just talking to this the other day that in the winter time last year, I was getting grilled cheese with bacon and tomato and a cup of soup. So that is definitely a winter thing. In terms of actually which chains you go to, which types of food you get?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like soup's an obvious one. I also feel like certain beverages at chain restaurants. Like during summer, I'll usually go with a lemonade varietal, especially at Wendy's, where I think their lemonade variations are really, really good. I'll certainly have them in the winter, but in the summer, there's no way I'm walking out of there without like a strawberry or a berry lemonade. I feel like for me, it maybe has more to do with like location by location in the sense that during the summer, I don't want to go to a place that isn't very well air conditioned,

you know? Good point. I think it's more about like in the summer, I feel like I get more like what's a place that's up to date recently renovated, clean and well ventilated. During the winter, I'm a little more agnostic. I'm just looking for the food, but certainly soups benefit in that time period. That's good. Yes.

Yeah, I think that's a good breakdown. I will say, you know, aside from the icy drinks, I will also, for whatever reason, like a big sandwich, like a Jersey Mike's or a firehouse subs. That to me is more of a warm weather food. That is something that I feel like I'm more likely to get during the summertime when the live in ZZ, you know? Yeah. Yeah, no, I know.

But I feel like big sandwiches. I also feel like the, you know. I know your sublime reference, but that's what you're asking to do. Yeah. But well, that would be summertime in the live in BC. I will have a, for me, you know, tacos, Mexican food, that's year round. I will have that anytime. I feel like pizza, the same sort of thing.

That's a year round sort of thing. Burgers, same sort of deal, but sandwiches, soup you mentioned. I certainly probably eat more, I think as far as to go chains, I'm more likely to go to a place where I, you know, this is salad bars no longer exist. But a salad bar, also something that would be a warm weather thing for me. Like if I was going to go get a big salad, that for me is like, it's a warm day. I want something lighter. I don't want something that's going to weigh me down.

And so I think that's, I'd be more likely, you know what, a place like a sweet green or locally like a Mendocino farms, that to me is more of a warm weather month chain restaurant. I agree with that. I think that like, I mean, I've noticed myself when I'm having my chiches, I've been hitting Wendy's a lot, but I don't know if that's just because, and I know that they are in trouble. They've been assholes. And I also hate that snarky fucking Wendy's Twitter, by the way.

Anyway, I don't know if things have changed as far as like, just what I'm craving, if that goes in cycles or what the deal is. But obviously slurpee consumption goes up in the summertime, Nick. I mean, that's, it's no doubt that slurpee consumption goes up. I feel like, honestly, I've noticed myself not getting pizza as much lately on days where I'm eating bad. And I don't know if that's like, oh, it's like a, but I think pizza can be a year-round thing. I think in the summertime, you're also getting pizza pies.

So I don't know. I think you're right that like a lunchtime thing or like a cold sub, those are something that, that's definitely something that I'll get more in the winter time. Like an Italian sub or something like that, something cool or a fresh salad or something that, that from a Mendocino or, or 10 to greens. I think those definitely, I get, I get those more in the, in the summertime. Less soups. I'm running through this in my brain too.

I also feel like obviously not this year, but usually in New York, in the summer and spring, I like to take advantage of being able to eat outside, especially those first like month or two, perhaps, when it's not overwhelmingly hot. And in those cases, I definitely start to simplify my orders. Like I might not get fries because I like the idea of just walking out of there with like a drink and a sandwich, you know, and just being able to sit down on a bench and have it very modular. In those cases, I also probably am not getting Taco Bell. You know, I feel like Taco Bell is probably more of a cold weather thing for me.

And I also think as I'm really sort of stewing on this question, I tend to be a chicken sandwich guy. I agree with you guys that the Wendy's chicken sandwich is sort of the platonic ideal of the fast food world. But in general, at most chains, I will go with a chicken sandwich over a burger. I think my burger consumption goes up a little bit in the summer. I think there's just something about this sort of like Americana of the summer. Maybe it's in my brain because of barbecues and stuff.

If I'm going to like Adam McDonald's flip from getting, you know, like a chicken select sandwich to getting a classic burger, it's probably in the summer months. You know what I'm going to say, Nick? No, it goes down for me in the in the non kind of winter or fall months is Thanksgiving dinner. That's a good one. I'm not eating Thanksgiving dinner in the summer time. Halloween candy. That consumption goes down.

Halloween candy goes down. Summer, spring and winter. Definitely eggnog for me and Christmas ham. I will say this. Yeah. I don't do a Christmas ham, but I will say this. Like Boston Market, I feel like they must have a dip in the hot summer months, right? That's a great call.

100 percent. Yeah. The big family feast. Yeah. That's definitely got to be a cold weather, a cold weather meal. Let us know your habits that vary by time of year. Hashtag, if it's seasonal, it's reasonable. Liz from Des Moines, thanks for your question.

If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, Doughboys, podcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830-463-6844 or to get the Doughboys double, our weekly bonus episode. Join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Griffin Newman, I hope you feel this episode. Did Costco proud? Thank you so much for finally being able to do this with us. Anything you would like to plug at this time?

Yeah. Blank check, as previously mentioned, you guys are coming up on an episode pretty soon. I won't spoil what movie you guys have selected. Very excited. But it's a big one. Very excited. And the tick is still viewable on Amazon despite being very canceled. Please watch it so that my back injury was not in vain.

And I'll also just quickly plug every Sunday on planetscom.live, but also hosted on Twitch and viewable later on YouTube. I do a show called The George Lucas Talk Show with my friend Connor Ratliff. He plays George Lucas and I play Wato and we have people on him. We interview them. We've been doing fundraisers for the last bunch of weeks. We're going to do them once a month now. And the other weeks in between will be a regular talk show.

But Weigar, you were on it. One of our fundraisers, you came on his Mando. That's right. Your little character bit. And Mitch, we've been trying to get on, but he's very hard to book. Yeah, he's got a lot going on right now. Hold on a second. You're making me sound bad.

No, no. We're having fun. One time you did say, I'm going to come on. And then you just never showed up. And another time to be fair, I texted you and said, can you come on right now? And you said, no, not right now. I'm going to do right now.

I'm streaming. And I asked you to come on immediately. The one I was supposed to show up with Weigar. Yeah. But yeah, there was complications. We'll just say that. That's fine. Look, you're one of our great guests.

You know, you're a waterloo and hopefully someday we'll book you. It's you and Josh Gad. You and Gad. You missed my character work. The two White Whales we're looking for. Nick, I love your character work. Yeah, it was a very, you know, my version of Mandalorian is very similar to Nick Weigar.

Yeah, it was a really interesting take on Mandalorian. He was incapable of making eye contact and talked a lot about his experience in the video game industry. I'd come on as Boss Nass. Yeah, there you go. Any time. God, that looked good. Careful with that voice.

Don't go too far down that road. With Boss Nass? To be fair, Boss Nass is probably the 15th most problematic character in the Phantom Menace. Like he's pretty low down. Yeah, he's low down the list. I guess so, yeah. No, Watto definitely trumps him.

Right, but I'm Jewish. It's taking back the word. Yeah, that's true. And I'm actually, I'm actually Gungan. That'll do it for this episode of Toe Boys. That'll be next time for the Spooed Webwatch. I'll have Nick Weigar happy eating. See ya.

On the next Doe Boys Double, friendly green grocer Mitch's grocery store month continues with a review of Checkout Counter Snacks. Lauren McGuire joins for an at the register impulse buy athelon. Salty, sour, sweet, it's all up for grabs and go. Get the Doe Boys Double every Tuesday only at Patreon.com slash Doe Boys.