The Costco food court is simultaneously the most famous and the least understood dining institution in American retail. Almost everyone knows the $1.50 hot dog. Almost no one knows that the pizza is made by robots. In 1996, Costco's then-CEO Jim Sinegal told Craig Jelinek — who would later become Costco's current CEO — that if he ever raised the price of the hot dog above $1.50, he would kill him. That story, whether precisely accurate in its details or not, captures the genu