The Buck Fifty Project Buy us a hot dog $1.50

Warehouse 313 · stop 2 of 648

Waterbury, Connecticut

August 29, 202620 road milesAll four of us70s clearOrder 123Food court $11.7741 photographs2 visits

Three sundaes and a cold brew caramel freeze, $10.96 plus $0.81 Connecticut tax. No hot dog, we went after dinner.

In the warehouse, $14.03 across 1 item. A box of coffee cups Grandma asked the boys to pick up.

Waterbury, #313. Second warehouse, and we came after dinner, which turns out to matter.
The food court receipt, with the card number blacked out.
The food court receipt. Tap it to read every line.

What we found

The whole board. Every stop gets one of these.
A quarter-pound-plus all-beef hot dog and a twenty-ounce soda, refills included. $1.50, 580 to 850 calories. Same as New Britain, same as 1985.
The chicken bake, $3.99, 840 calories. Rich maintains it is underrated.
A slice is $1.99. The whole eighteen inches is $9.95. Hot turkey and provolone, $6.99.
Chicken strips, $6.99, and somewhere between 1,130 and 1,640 calories depending on the sauce.
Strawberry shortcake sundae $2.99, ice cream sundae $2.49, a cup of vanilla $1.99.
The kiosk sells three cold brew freezes: mocha, latte and caramel, $2.99 each. The board on the wall advertises one.
Cold brew caramel freeze, $2.99, item 1992933. You cannot order it off the board, because the board does not mention it.
The kiosk would like to know whether you want a Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie with that.
The caramel one, in the parking lot. Two of the three freezes are kiosk-only and this is the one nobody tells you about.
Strawberry shortcake sundae, $2.99, 750 calories.
A giant skeleton, hanging from the rafters. It is August.
Item 1785062. $259.99 less $60.00, so $199.99, with LCD eyes and sounds.
Connecticut has no NFL team of its own. Costco solves this by stocking everybody else’s.
The Ninja Flex Flame. Rich owns one and will tell you, unprompted and unpaid, that it really does all five: grill, griddle, smoke, roast, pizza.
Rowenta Pro steam iron, $59.99, item 1975346. The asterisk in the corner means this warehouse is not getting more of them. We need an iron and we want it on sale. Into Costco Casino it goes: does it go on sale before it runs out? We will keep saying where it stands.
Mathew, declining to be photographed.
Carter, same idea. All four of us are on every trip and none of the boys’ faces go on this site, so they hide behind whatever is nearest.
Leaving. Six hundred and forty-six to go.

Costco Casino

11 things on this trip had an asterisk or a price ending in .97. The whole record is here.

What we thought

Ice cream sundae, $2.49 Would order again

Sundaes for the boys. We came after dinner, so nobody had a hot dog, which happens more than we expected. — Carter and Mathew

Strawberry shortcake sundae, $2.99 Would order again

Jes got the special one: fifty cents more, strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla, and photographed on the way out. — Jes

Cold brew caramel freeze, $2.99 Would order again

A nice pick-me-up, and Costco’s version of a frappuccino. Kiosk only, and one of the two freezes the wall board does not mention. Open question: will they ever do a pumpkin one? — Rich

Second visit

September 19, 2026Order 511Food court $2.6721 photographs

One strawberry twist sundae from the kiosk, $2.49 plus $0.18 Connecticut tax. Order 511 at 6:50pm. No hot dog: we came back for the iron.

The sundae kiosk. Tap to select your flavor.
The food court receipt, with the card number blacked out.
The food court receipt. Tap it to read every line.
A strawberry twist sundae, $2.49, in the parking lot. The whole order.
Waterbury, warehouse 313, on a gray Saturday. Second time here.
Puffer jackets, in September.
$149.97, asterisked: a Pioneer party speaker, marked down and not being reordered.
$169.97, asterisked: Bose QuietComfort headphones in black. Marked down and not being reordered.
$199.99 after a $130 instant rebate: the same Bose headphones in white smoke. Also asterisked.
$399.97, asterisked: an Insta360 X5 bundle, marked down and not being reordered.
$399.99: a Chirp Contour massage roller table bundle, item 1987084. No asterisk on this one, it is just what it costs.
The Rowenta, $39.99. List $59.99, $20 off at the register. Five warehouses at $59.99, then $44.99 at Enfield, now this. The iron the watch page exists for, back where the ladder started.
$99.97, asterisked: a Keurig single-serve maker, marked down and not being reordered.
$399.99 after an $80 rebate, asterisked: a Ninja espresso machine.
Carter, behind a fourteen-pack of Oats Overnight. The asterisk on that tag is the next photograph down.
$32.99, asterisked: Oats Overnight, fourteen shakes and a bottle. Not being reordered.
$199.97, asterisked: an AR North America pressure washer, 2300 PSI.
$229.97, asterisked: a Camp Chef three-burner stove.
Last one only. A Lifesmart treadmill, $1,549.99 struck through by hand to $999.
Mathew, behind a case of Toblerone, at the end of a candy aisle that runs most of the length of the building.
Sorry, this lane is closed.
$5,628.59. A bottle of Weller, in the locked case.
$4,700.07. The Glenlivet 40, next to it.

What we thought

Strawberry twist sundae, $2.49 Would order again

We came from a birthday party that had strawberry cupcakes. Jes missed out. This was an acceptable substitution. — Jes

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or connected to Costco Wholesale Corporation. We just really like the hot dog.