How A Costco Fight Supposedly Led To A Restriction On Rotisserie Chicken

When you're at a place like Costco, it seems almost baffling the number of things you can in just one purchase. Want a pallet of soda for your next barbecue? Aisle 5, to your left. Need more laundry detergent than you'll ever use? Just got shipped in last week. Want to bulk up on toilet paper in case of another shortage? Absolutely.

While there is a certain thrill about buying in bulk — perhaps a remnant of how our ancestors felt when they returned successfully with a hunt of great size — there comes a time when even Costco itself has to put a limit on just how much their members could buy. These can be attributed to economic factors, such as the recent shipping delays and back-ups plaguing the market. In 2021, Costco announced a purchasing limit on certain household items, like bottled water and cleaning supplies, to prevent running out of those items in the event they wouldn't be able to get more due to shipping delays (via CNBC).

In other cases, however, limits seem to be placed not due to shortages or lack of products, but rather the actions of the customers themselves. What if a certain product, such as Costco's rotisserie chicken, was so in-demand that people would actually break into violence over it? This was the supposed case for one Costco, where one Redditor reports that they had seen a pummeling over the poultry by two grown women.

"I had the pleasure of seeing two grown women (with their children present) fight over the last rotisserie chicken," Reddit user u/ProjectAcceptable532 described in May. "I haven't had one in a few years, but I can't imagine they are good enough to warrant that level of aggression."

This was the brief, but wild event that supposedly warranted a local Costco to suddenly limit how many rotisserie chickens their customers could purchase. The fight between these two poultry-loving women, u/ProjectAcceptable532 claimed in a later post, now warrants only one chicken to be purchased per customer and that an employee must now "supervise" the chicken warmer to prevent any more fights. Some Reddit users, however, weren't so sure that this was the case, with some even doubting the fight happened at all. Blame for the limitation on the chicken was placed on reports of bird flu.

But let's assume that the fight did indeed happen. Costco's rotisserie chickens are popular, especially for their cheap price. As Reader's Digest reports, even among the skyrocketing inflation, the chicken will remain a modest $4.99. It could be that these two women, if they even existed, were fighting over who would get the last chicken for a cheap and easy dinner. While it's up for debate whether or not such a fight happened, Costco still sells rotisserie chicken all the same — though, you should probably read up on it before you purchase it next time.