What Happened To The Costco Seafood Roadshow? - Tasting Table

"To the joy of regular shoppers, when the roadshow was in town the store would be filled with a wide variety of different seafood options like fresh clams, scallops, lobsters, king crabs, whole salmon and red snapper, tiger prawns, and many other amazing offerings. It was a time when the already fairly ample selection of Costco seafood products was vastly expanded, offering good deals on oceanic delights."

"During the height of COVID, when all businesses were mixed up - and even Costco's famous samples were temporarily nixed for safety reasons - the seafood roadshow quietly slipped away. While customers who enjoyed the event still bemoan its disappearance across the internet - as well as all of the deals they used to find there - according to staff, the store may actually be better off without it."

"As a current meat department employee, that seafood roadshow was the bane of my existence. The biggest issue was how time consuming it was to prepare and clean up the mobile ice chests each day. Indeed, the diversion of labor required for the event is often suggested as perhaps not the reason that the sea."

Costco's seafood roadshow was a periodic in-store event that generated excitement among regular shoppers by offering expanded selections of fresh seafood products including clams, scallops, lobsters, king crabs, salmon, and other premium options at competitive prices. The event occurred every few weeks and provided deals beyond Costco's standard seafood inventory. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when safety protocols eliminated in-store samples and disrupted normal operations, the seafood roadshow quietly ceased. While customers continue to express nostalgia for the event online, Costco staff indicate the store may benefit from its discontinuation. Meat department employees cite the roadshow's labor-intensive preparation and cleanup requirements as significant operational challenges that made the event burdensome to execute.

Read at Tasting Table