A Costco with no parking problems, no crowds, no waiting to check out

Costco Wholesale members who fight for a parking space, then fight the crowds inside the store, fantasize about shopping in a near-empty warehouse, such as the one shown above and below.

This warehouse even has a food court with 18-inch pizzas and all of the other Costco favorites you find elsewhere.

Editor's note: We prepare most of our meals at home, so I'm still waiting for the one food store in northern New Jersey that has organics and everything else at great prices. Meanwhile, I continue to make the rounds of my favorites, including Costco Wholesale, H Mart and ShopRite.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You died and went to Costco Wholesale shopping heaven in Hackensack, N.J.

That sums up the experience of walking into a Costco warehouse where you'll encounter only a handful of other customers and cashiers waiting to check out your purchases.

This warehouse closed in October 2015, when a bigger and far busier Costco, plus a gas station, opened in the Teterboro Landing Shopping Center off of busy Route 46.

Five months later, a renovated Hackensack warehouse opened as a Costco Business Center, where the focus is on such small businesses as restaurants and caterers, and delivers their orders.

That's why the parking lot and the store are such a pleasure.

The old food court also was renovated, but you won't find a pharmacy, optical services, photo department, tires, clothing or a separate store with wine.

True. The selection is limited. 

But you can pick up produce, eggs, milk, bread, water, snack bars, candy and many other items stocked by a regular Costco Wholesale.

Instead of fighting the crowds at the Teterboro Costco on Saturday afternoon, I dashed out to the Hackensack warehouse for:

One of the best salads in the world, Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.79 for a 1-pound package); incomparable Campari Tomatoes ($5.49 for 2 pounds), 6 pounds of large Bosc Pears ($6.99), 2.5 pounds of Starbucks French Roast Coffee Beans ($15.49 with an instant coupon), and KIND snack bars ($18.99).

The Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack carries hothouse-grown Campari Tomatoes from both Canada and Mexico. They prove winter tomatoes don't have to be watery or mealy or both. For a real treat, pop one whole into you mouth and bite into it.

The Business Center also carries 22-ounce jars of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, a refrigerated product. Here, I dressed organic whole wheat pasta with pesto and organic pine nuts, and washed them down with a glass of Kirkland Signature Malbec, a red wine from Argentina.

After my pasta, I enjoyed a salad of triple-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, including peppery arugula, dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

 

The Costco Wholesale Business Center at 80 S. River St. in Hackensack is open until 6 p.m. on weekdays, 4 p.m. on Saturdays and closes on Sundays. It's also closer to my home than the new Teterboro warehouse.

Although the H Mart supermarket in Little Ferry is as shabby as ever, managers have added dividers in the fresh fish case, as well as new signs, above and below. On Sunday, the store had no heat, so a free sample of hot noodle soup with fish cakes was greatly appreciated.

An employee acknowledged the new signs are missing a required piece of information -- whether the fish is wild or farmed -- and said the store will be remedying that. I bought three whole wild-caught red snappers for pan frying at home, and munched on free seafood samples at a nearby counter while my fish was cleaned.

I also bought Organic Brown Shimeji Mushrooms.

At the Little Ferry H Mart, the price of a 5-pound box of Spanish Clementines has fluctuated -- from $7.99 on Nov. 6 to $3.99 on Dec. 4, above, and to $5.99 on Sunday.

At the ShopRite in Paramus this afternoon, 1-liter bottles of Alonia-brand Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain were only $3.99 each, an unusually low price for an EVOO that isn't a blend from several countries. I bought three bottles with a best-by date of January 2019 for dressing salads, adding to pasta sauces and eating with bread. 

The ShopRite in Paramus, at 224 Route 4 east, also is accessible from Forest Avenue.

Amid the widely publicized adulteration of some extra-virgin olive oils in Italy, the price of this heart-healthy oil has risen dramatically, and producers have been shrinking the traditional 1-liter bottle and 3-liter tin, and selling what are called Mediterranean blends of EVOOs from several countries, including Greece, Spain, Tunisia and Portugal. Above, Colavita "100% Certified Italian" Extra-Virgin Olive was $14.99 for less than a full liter at the Paramus ShopRite.

A blend of extra-virgin olive oils was $7.99 for a half-liter bottle. A full liter is 33.8 ounces.

ShopRite says it imports extra-virgin olive oil made from Italian-grown olives. Here, a 1-liter bottle was $8.99, but I've seen it on sale for $6.99.

A fan of the new Costco Anywhere Visa Card runs into a big Catch-22

Banners touting the new Visa credit card at the Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack emphasize the bigger cash rewards, compared to the old American Express card, but don't mention Visa's foreign-currency transaction fee.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The transition to a Visa credit card from American Express hasn't been smooth for some Costco Wholesale members whose howls of protest are all over Facebook.

We received our new Visa cards long before the changeover on June 20, and I had absolutely no problem when I purchased a few items at the Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack on that day.

I liked the new card, because it offered more cash back than the American Express Card on purchases at Costco, including gasoline, as well as on restaurant meals and travel, and at other stores.

But then I received a statement from Citi that one of my Costco accounts was past due.

I was hit with an interest charge of $17.84 and a foreign-transaction fee of 50 cents for fast-food restaurant meals my wife inadvertently paid for with the Costco Anywhere Visa Card while we were on vacation in Montreal.

Catch-22

I wasn't able to reach anyone at Citi on the phone, but in a message, wrote I had never received a statement, and asked for the interest charge to be reversed.

Citi declined, but agreed to send me the statement I never received.

And what I got in the mail was a statement from my old American Express TrueEarnings Card for $885.96 with a due date of July 5.

Here is the Catch-22:

I had that American Express account set up for auto pay, as I do for all my credit cards, and paperless billing.

Usually, I would get an email from American Express, saying my statement was ready to view on my computer, and I would print it out and put the payment coupon in my checkbook to deduct it on the due day.

This time, I didn't get an email from American Express, and my payment was never deducted on July 5.

The Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack. A couple of weeks ago, I overheard two members tell an employee they never received their new Visa credit cards, but had received statements showing someone stole them and made purchases.

$677M profit

I read comments from a lot of Costco members on Facebook about what great service American Express provides.

I agreed with them, but this time American Express really let me down.

Then, I read a brief story in my daily newspaper, reporting American Express saw its second-quarter profit jump by 37 percent, "helped by the sale of its Costco credit card portfolio...."

"AmEx sold the Costco portfolio to Citigroup, providing a one-time after-tax gain of $677 million for the April-June quarter.

"The credit card company said it earned $2.02 billion in the period or $2.10 per share."

So, AmEx is laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of some Costco members.

'Global acceptance'

In the July 2016 edition of Costco Connection magazine, company officials say they chose Citi because it is the world's largest credit-card issuer.

The card, one Costco executive said, has "global acceptance, great cash-back opportunities and benefits such as travel and purchase protection to provide peace of mind."

But the word "anywhere" in the name of the new credit card is an exaggeration:

Costco overlooked the 3% foreign-currency transaction fee that makes the Anywhere Visa Card a poor choice when outside the United States.

American Express also charges a foreign-currency transaction fee, so the Visa card is no improvement there.

In another Catch-22, Citi's website says the foreign-transaction fee doesn't include purchases at Costco worldwide.

But when I visited two Costco warehouses in Montreal in July, they wouldn't accept my Costco Visa card or even a Visa-branded bank debit card.

I had to use a MasterCard, and pay a currency-transaction fee.

Will close account

Now, I've added my wife as an authorized user on my Costco Visa Business account, allowing me to close our second Costco account.

But when I was finally able to reach a customer service representative at Citi on Monday afternoon, I was told to wait to close the account until after I receive my cash-back coupon in February.

And once I explained that I never received my last American Express statement, she said she would reverse the interest charges I paid.

September update

A few weeks after I posted this, the credit still had not shown up on my statement.

So, I called again last week, and was assured I would get a refund of the $17.84 in interest.

And a week or so later, I looked at my statement online and saw the credit of $17.84. Case closed.

Costco Wholesale pizza withdrawal cases are mounting in Hackensack

Now that small businesses can get delivery of orders they place online, the parking lot at the Costco Wholesale Business Center on South River Street in Hackenack usually is almost empty, as it was last Monday afternoon.

On Monday, the shuttered food court from the old Costco warehouse looked like it did in this March 15 photo. Employees said a renovated food court is expected to open in the first week of May.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As a supplier to restaurants and pizzerias, Costco Wholesale Business Centers sell pizza boxes, but not the pies themselves.

The Business Center in Hackensack is different, however, because it's a renovated Costco warehouse with a food court that catered mainly to consumers for more than 21 years before closing last October.

When the warehouse reopened on March 15 with a new sign and a new purpose, the food court remained closed, but employees said it would reopen in a couple of weeks.

On Monday, when I stopped by for one of Costco's 18-inch veggie-combo pizzas ($9.95), the food court still was closed.

But I was assured the food court will indeed open in the first week of May.

As the opening has been delayed, I've been showing Costco pizza withdrawal symptoms.

No-pizza diet

The last slice of Costco pizza I had was more than six months ago, on Oct. 15, when the new, bigger and more crowded Costco Wholesale opened in Teterboro.

I could get only a slice of the regular cheese pizza (which is cut into two smaller slices), and, as usual, it was gooey and filling.

I went on a no-pizza, no-bread diet to lose weight more than five years ago, so I only allow myself the guilty pleasure of a couple of slices of Costco pizza once or twice a year.

The pies are pre-made, and baked in a conveyor-belt oven that can't be slowed, if you want a well-done pie -- my preference.

I usually put one or two slices in my oven at home, and crisp them up.

I saw 22-ounce jars of refrigerated Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto marked down last Monday at the Costco Wholesale Business Center, apparently because of a freeze/use by day of April 27.

The price was cut in half to $3.97.

I bought two 34.5-ounce bags of Quaker Simply Granola for about $1.85 a pound, below.

Details

Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 S. River St., Hackensack; 201-296-3044. Food court, 201-296-3061. Call for warehouse hours. Closed Sundays.

Hackensack Costco reopens so you can run out for milk, bread, eggs

Five months after the Costco Wholesale in Hackensack ended a run of more than 20 years, the warehouse reopened today as a Costco Business Center catering to restaurants and other small businesses.

Four-gallon tubs of mayonnaise aimed at food businesses are among the unusually large sizes, even for Costco. The Business Center offers delivery and even bigger savings on purchases by the pallet in the warehouse or online. 



By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Costco's Hackensack warehouse reopened this morning as the company's first Business Center in New Jersey, and as the name suggests, the focus is on selling large quantities to restaurants and other small businesses.

Still, Costco members who want to avoid the mob scene at the bigger Teterboro warehouse will be able to pick up milk, bread, eggs, organic spring mix and other items in the sizes they are familiar with.

And the Hackensack Business Center retained the old food court, which will reopen later this week, offering fresh-baked 18-inch pizzas for $9.95 each, frozen yogurt and other items.

This morning, I picked up:

Three pounds of conventional bananas, $1.39; 1-pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, $4.79; a 2.5-pound jar of Kirkland Signature Unsalted Cashews, $14.89; and a dozen 16.9-ounce containers of Vita Coco Pure Coconut Water, $16.49 after instant savings of $5.50.

Instant savings also are being offered on spring water, sparkling apple juice and many other beverages through March 26.

The food court is expected to reopen later this week.

The new Business Center has enormous refrigerated rooms, above and below.

Restaurant equipment, including refrigerators, stoves and other items, are the first things you see when entering the warehouse. Electronics and clothing are no longer offered in Hackensack.

The Business Center at 80 S. River St., Hackensack, opens much earlier than a typical Costco warehouse, closes earlier and isn't open on Sundays.