Freshly baked pizzas finally return to Costco Wholesale in Hackensack

On Friday, I picked up two 18-inch pies, including this all-vegetable Combo Pizza from the Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack, where the food court from the original warehouse reopened on Friday after a delay of nearly two months.

Each $9.95 pizza, with plenty of gooey cheese, is divided into 12 slices. Vegetables include mushrooms, black olives, green pepper and onion.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Until Friday, the closest Costco Wholesale members in Hackensack could get to a freshly baked 18-inch pizza were the thousands of boxes offered to pizzerias and restaurants. 

The original Hackensack warehouse at 80 S. River St. reopened on March 15 as a Business Center, and instead of eliminating the food court, Costco decided to renovate it.

But delays in getting permits kept it closed until Friday, employees said.

I went there Friday afternoon and picked up freshly baked 18-inch Vegetable and Pepperoni pizzas ($19.90).

At home, I tried to crisp up the slices in the oven for about 10 minutes, but all of the gooey, full-fat cheese weighed down the crust.

Still, I enjoyed the guilty pleasure of three small slices of the vegetable pie for dinner with a glass of red wine and a big organic spring mix salad.

The Kirkland Signature pizzas are baked in a conveyor-belt oven. If you want your pie well-done, the Costco employee can push it back so it spends a couple of more minutes in the oven.

A slice of pizza is $1.99 (actually, two small slices). Also available is a Hot Turkey & Provolone Sandwich for $3.99, below. 

Other food court items include a fruit smoothie, frozen yogurt and an all-beef hot dog.

A slice of Costco pizza has a minimum of 710 calories.

The food court at the Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack (1-201-296-3044). This Costco is closed on Sundays.

Thousands of pizza boxes, from 10 inches to 18 inches, are offered at the Hackensack Business Center.

We usually buy the 3-pound bag of peeled whole California garlic from the Teterboro Costco, but I bought this 3-pound jar of Kirkland Signature Minced California Garlic in water from the Hackensack Business Center to use when we run out of the whole cloves.