The Meat Department At A Costco Business Center Is Truly A Sight To Behold

Costco is synonymous with bulk. The warehouse retailer's wholesale approach means that you pay less per unit, but boy-oh-boy is it a lot of units. You want some Nutella? Try 7 pounds of it. Need a jar of mayo? Take 4 gallons of it. The quantity-to-price ratio is astounding, but believe it or not, deals like these pale in comparison to the mind-blowing excess of a Costco Business Center.

Unlike Costco's standard wholesale stores, which cater to families, Business Centers are designed to supply restaurants, convenience stores, and other small businesses. The bulk products here make a standard Costco look laughable in comparison. We're talking 50-pound bags of onions and beans, 5,400-foot paper towel rolls, and 1,200-packet boxes of Splenda. Everything's bigger in a Costco Business Center, especially the meat department.

A typical Costco warehouse already has a big meat department, occupying most of the back of the store, but this selection looks minuscule compared to the offerings at a Business Center. These stores stock so much meat that they need to build room-sized walk-in refrigerators just to store it all, so when you step into the meat department, you're actually walking into the biggest fridge you'll ever see. Think that's wild? You haven't heard the half of it.

If you've seen one Costco Wholesale warehouse, you've pretty much seen them all. The general layout is consistent, with electronics at the front and perishable food in the back. Throw in a few clothing racks and hot tubs and you have your standard Costco experience. You need to abandon all of these expectations when you go to a Costco Business Center. It is nothing like the standard stores. In fact, the vast majority of products sold by Business Centers aren't available at regular Costco warehouses.

On the flip side, Costco Business Centers don't offer most of the products you can find at their standard stores. They don't sell gas, electronics, books, clothing, jewelry, pharmaceuticals, or home goods. They don't even have the famous Costco rotisserie chicken in stock. A shame to be sure, but the most devastating fact of all is that Costco Business Centers don't offer free samples like Costco Wholesale.

Whatever Costco Business Centers lack, they make up for with their meat departments alone. Even if you were blindfolded, you could find the meat department at a Costco Business Center just by the change in temperature, which is so extreme that the store will actually supply you with a jacket while you shop for meat. The supply is overwhelming, with giant cuts of beef and pork piled on tables in the middle of the room. You can even buy a whole pig carcass.

If all of this has you yearning to visit a Costco Business Center, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that you don't need any kind of special membership to shop there. A Costco membership of any level will grant you access to the Business Centers. The bad news is that you might have a hard time finding a location near you. At the time of publication, there are only 26 Costco Business Center outposts in the U.S., spread across just 14 states.

If you do happen to have a Costco Business Center in your area, it's definitely worth checking out. But remember: These stores are designed to serve small businesses, not families –– and certainly not individuals. It is impossible to overstate the bulk quality of the products, and unless you've got a lot of customers to feed, you might not be able to use all that you bought. Some of the meats can be divided into smaller cuts and frozen (don't shop here unless you're willing to flex your butcher skills), but you might want to avoid other perishable products. One last note: Costco Business Centers have different hours than the regular warehouses. While the standard stores have weekday hours from 10:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., the Business Centers open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 6:00 p.m.