One Of The Top Pizza Chains In The US Is Actually A Supermarket
It's no surprise that Americans especially love their pizza, with about 6,000 slices consumed per American in their whole lifetime and around 33% eating pizza weekly, according to New York Daily News. The pizza restaurant industry is booming, racking up an estimated $45.59 billion in sales in 2021, per Statista. Some of the biggest pizza restaurant chains include Domino's, Little Caesars, Marco's Pizza, Papa John's, Cicis, and more (via Zippia).
In 2021, Domino's had the most number of locations in the United States with 6,560 restaurants. Pizza Hut trailed behind with about 1,000 fewer U.S. locations in 2021, and Little Caesars had 4,181 stores in the United States in 2021. Also in 2021, Papa John's had 3,164 U.S. locations, and Cicis had 281 restaurants in 2021. With all of those numbers in mind, you may be shocked to find out that one of the biggest pizza chains in the United States is actually a supermarket.
Costco is popular for its pizza
With a total of 120.9 million members and 847 stores around the world as of December 7, 2022, wholesale supermarket chain Costco has a huge reach, per Costco. This actually makes it one of the biggest pizza chains in the United States. While serving pizza isn't Costco's primary business, it's extremely well equipped to handle the crowds. Costco pizza makers use a special dough spreader machine that stretches the dough into a perfectly round pie (via YouTube). The pizza dough is then topped with pizza sauce, of course. However, Costco has special pizza sauce machines that rotate the pizza while the sauce is dispensed onto the dough, saving lots of time during the pizza-making process.
Depending on the location, Costco sells its pizzas by the slice for $1.99 or a whole 18-inch pizza for $9.95, according to Fast Food Menu Prices. Some Costco locations may allow non-members to access the food court and enjoy a slice; however, you may need to actually have a Costco membership in some areas, per USA TODAY. Costco's pizza is so popular that employees on the r/Costco Reddit thread discussed how many pizzas they sold on Halloween, and the comments were shocking. One Costco employee in San Diego said that their store sold 773 pizzas, while another user said their store sold about 600 pizzas in that one day.