The Costco France food court has a few menu items that we don’t have in the US. We just returned from France in June 2023, after spending almost three months vacationing there. Our typical routine at home is a weekly shopping trip to Costco. Of course sometimes, Danny makes more than one trip a week. I guess you can say we’re avid fans.
A favorite activity during each of our travels is to visit a local Costco to check out the differences. There are not only special menu items in the Costco France food court, but lots of local items to discover while roaming the aisles. I’ve previously posted about our visit to Costco Canada in Montreal and their special menu options.
Join us, as we explore the Costco France store in Villebon-sur-Yvette. This is actually the first Costco store to open in France and there are now two warehouses. Both of them are located in the outskirts of Paris. Yes, your US Costco card works at every location around the world, just like at home. As you can see, this store is quite large. There also seems to be more space between the aisles and products not quite stacked as closely together as our stores back home.
Costco France food court menu
Although the menu board looks the same as the ones in the US, there are a few different items. The hot dogs and drinks are €1.50. Unlike the choice for hot dogs in Canada, where you can still choose between beef or polish sausage, your only choice here is beef, just like Houston. However, they do offer a Cobb salad which isn’t available at home.
They also offer French fries, chicken tenders with fries, café au lait and three types of ice cream sundaes. You can’t find any of these items at our local stores, except for the ice cream at some locations. I almost missed their BBQ chicken pizza option which I’ve never seen before. I’ll bet all of these items would sell well in the US too. I wish we had a few of these on our menu.
The fries were hot and made to order. When I went to fill my cup with soda, nothing worked. I tried every drink option, but no luck. Someone then came up behind me to explain how it works. What’s weird that I hadn’t noticed is that when you purchase your drink they stick a QR code on the cup. You need to scan your cup’s QR code so the fountain machine knows it’s paid for, then all the nozzles work. But, only one person at a time can fill their cup because you need scan the next cup after the guest in front of you has finished. I wonder now if they allow free refills if you rescan your cup? I didn’t try it, but question why they have this process for the drinks, since you can’t get a cup without paying first.
Let’s explore some of the local products in the cold cases
An entire aisle devoted to charcuterie and cheese with amazing selections and varieties. I loved the baskets with 4-12 cheese selections. The traditional beef and lamb merguez sausages are almost impossible to find back home. The tuna empanadas, slabs of terrine de campagne and BBQ chicken pizzas looked delicious.
Walking over to the wine section we saw cases of beautiful heirloom tomatoes and 24 pack boxes of Cannelés de Bordeaux. These are delicious. The Cannelés are a regional French pastry from Bordeaux that has rum and vanilla flavoring. They are crispy on the outside as they’re baked in these metal cylinders, but have a creamy custard center. Yes, they can be addictive. Perhaps that’s why they’re in a 24 pack! Finally, who can go wrong with jars of fois gras and triple packs of pâte.
We made it to the wine section where we loaded up on great French wine and champagne with even cheaper pricing than at home. Glad we had an empty trunk to store our goodies for the coming weeks.
A few American products too
We did notice a handful of American products. In the US, we buy the Kirkland vodka which is made in France. To us, it is very similar tasting to Grey Goose. However, we noticed that in France, the Kirkland vodka is American and made in the USA.
There were also the standards like chocolate cake and apple pie. Everywhere we went this trip, donuts are very popular. We saw specialty bakery shops that made, stuffed, filled and topped donuts with every conceivable flavor, fruit and chocolate. Here the beignets are stuffed with chocolate and some with apple filling. Of course you can’t go wrong with those that have icing and sprinkles. These actually are called cronuts. They are basically a croissant pastry dough shaped like a donut which then can be filled and frosted. Finally, the last product are bags of “American” pancakes. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen pancakes sold in bags at the grocery store back home. But, they seem to be popular here. Not sure why, when they have delicious crêpes!
I hope you enjoyed touring the many different items available at Costco France with us. We’ll check out more stores as we travel and we’ll share what we find with you.
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