Ordering a Cake from Costco: More Complicated Than You’d Expect

Since childhood, the visage of Costco’s bakery has reverberated in my mind’s eye as a happy place full of giant muffins, croissants sweating slightly in their plastic clamshell, and the grocery outlet’s tuxedo cake (a fan favorite). I had no clue the colossal supermarket would custom bake a bespoke birthday cake.

A quick glance at the Costco discourse online, however, reveals how some savvy cardholders know to look to their local warehouse for made-to-order cakes ahead of special events. But tracking down a Costco that offers customized cakes proves more difficult than wrenching one of the store’s enormous shopping carts from its enmeshed hoard. Although the retailer has automated their iconic membership cards to an app alternative, requesting a cake from the convenience of your cell phone remains impossible.

Perhaps because of food delivery apps and grocery store order systems, the inability to contact Costco’s bakery team from the store’s app feels baffling. But, hoping to unlock a new level of adulthood, I sought a custom cake from Costco’s mysterious order system. Equipped mostly with strands of information gathered from online message boards and with minimal corroboration with the Costco website, I did, in fact, bring home my very own custom Costco cake and lived to tell the tale. 

So, despite having a robust and seemingly up-to-date website, Costco’s online presence relies on the store’s dedicated customers to decode the intricacies of each individual store. Though every Costco location contains a bakery section, the store’s website leads me to believe not all Costco’s have a live bakery housing a support staff behind the refrigerated desserts, which double as a barricade to the back of house. To ensure I visited a full-fledged Costco, which included an in-house bakery, I toggled on the store’s official website until I spied a warehouse claiming to house a bakery and a fresh deli. To do this, you simply enter your zip code and scroll down to a little box where the store(s) that are most convenient to your location are listed. Click on an individual store, and the list of its in-house offerings appears under the address.  

However, after calling and visiting several other Costco locations, I was able to track down a cake ordering station at each I visited (three in total); but to save any hassle or disappointment, I recommend tolerating Costco’s hold music for a few minutes to ensure the warehouse you head to equips itself with a cake depot. 

Again, despite Costco’s handy and extremely detailed app that is capable of listing which items are in stock at each store, the app lacks a tool to assist with online ordering. Part of the draw, I realized, must be the Costco custom cake lore itself. The elusive and outmoded system managed to turn me into a super-fan overnight. So, like being in the stadium when LeBron James scores or watching a beloved show from the first episode, customers willing to travel through the cake-ordering process must feel like a select group of Costco cardholders.

Probably even more elite and rarified than Costco’s Gold Star Members, those able to entrust an operation otherwise unseen in a store otherwise regulated by strict rules (I’ll never remember to leave my receipt outside my wallet while walking out the door), ordering a custom cake at Costco felt similar to requesting my burger animal-style from In-N-Out for the very first time.

Once inside the familiar but always overwhelming outlet, I found my way to the back of the store, where I’ve noticed Costco tends to place its mighty bakery selection. And, like a sweet-toothed Indiana Jones treasure, the legendary cake kiosk appeared before my eyes in the very corner of the Costco bakery. Probably a fixture I’d overlooked every time I visited a participating Costco location, the unassuming booth was neither manned nor digitized in any way. Instead, the store’s subdued cake-tracker harkens back to an era dependent on postal collection boxes or even telephone booths. The plastic contraption displays their limited cake selections, a laminated calendar, a pen, order sheets, and a slot.

Filling out the 8×11 paper reminded me of the days before online banking, wherein folks were required to balance checking books with pen and paper. Yes, the process was easy enough, nothing a third grader couldn’t complete within two minutes, but the simplicity also cast a shadow of mistrust over the system. After filling in my name, phone number, cake selections, and date of pickup (the form asks for at least a day’s lead time), I slid my form into the slot like an out-in-the-open ballot box, crossed my fingers, and made my way to the food court.

While still more varied than the grab-and-go cakes Costco keeps premade, the options for custom designs remain limited. In fact, the main drawback of ordering a custom cake at Costco might be the lack of options to choose from. In essence, guests pick from two sizes (10-inch and a half-sheet cake), a filling (white or chocolate), a rudimentary design, and a personalized message. Anyone in hopes of anything other than the two standard flavors, or even to blend the two, sadly, is out of luck at Costco. 

So, if your party’s guest of honor doesn’t require a copyrighted character or a specialty flavor, the ten designs Costco’s team keeps at the ready could satisfy your party’s dessert requirements. Roses, candies, seasonal, scored, rainbow, flag, balloons, baby shower, cross, and Costco Bear populate the small menu of frosting adornments, all reminiscent of clip-arts first era.

Mostly of note because the list reminded me of Costco’s red-vest wearing mascot, which I had long forgotten along with each Spice Girl’s birth names, offering anything beyond color-tinted script still felt far above the bare minimum. When it comes time to choose your edible typescript, Costco’s form gives you the option to request a color of frosting via a fill-in box rather than a checked option, leading me to believe that the store could satisfy any basic color request. Similarly, the form indicates no character limit or tonal boundaries, therefore hypothetically endowing the cake with more space and fewer guidelines than the Twitter of yesteryear. 

To lend my cake adventure a little meta-flavor, I asked Costco’s bakery staff to scribe “We bought a custom Costco cake” across the white surface of the celebratory dessert in the same red tone of Costco’s own brand lettering. As requested, a curly, cursive cake announced my triumph when I returned to the store the following day, and a cursory online search also solely showed other frosted, cursive writing, leaving me to assume other typefaces are off limits. 

Despite the limited and somewhat irrelevant pictorials provided by team Costco, at just under $18 for a round cake intended for up to 16 people or $25 for a half-sheet tray large enough to slice up sweet for up to 48 celebratory attendees, what Costco’s bakery might lack in choices, it makes up for it in affordability. At about a dollar per person for the more petite cake and just over fifty cents a guest for the larger sheet pan option, Costco beats just about any retailer at cost-effectiveness without even needing to step into the ring.

Sure, the order form needlessly attempts to take advantage of impulse-buying instincts and also offers an option to clock on a 60-count tray of assorted cookies (chocolate chunk, oatmeal, and double-nut), but I can’t fault the store for its willingness to capitalize on the moment. 

The moment of truth. Yes, though Costco’s cake-ordering process came with a slight learning curve, the system ultimately proved simpler than registering for a political party — if, indeed, a cake awaited me. What dawned on me for the first time while returning to my local Costco a mere 24 hours after filling out my custom cake form was that nowhere on the kiosk or sheet indicated how I would retrieve my dessert.

So, I retraced my steps from the day prior and returned to the red and white box I slipped my form into. Once a note of inquisitiveness entered my expression, the staff circulating behind the partitioned-off bakery attentively asked me how they could help. Without a note of reservation or concern, I was directed to the nearby refrigerated produce room, where my cake waited patiently on a speed rack full of other custom orders.

No one double-checks to ensure you’re pulling the correct cake from the rack, and I shuddered, imagining somehow clumsily ruining another Costco regular’s cake order as I delicately slid my small-sized cake from its holding cell. Nonetheless, minutes after ending the enormous retailer, I cradled a round, white vanilla cake topped with a disturbingly thick Costco bear made entirely of molded frosting.

If I had to repeat the process all over again, I’d change very little. As mentioned earlier, calling ahead of traveling to the always-bustling store alleviates any anxiety of wondering if the cake kiosk will be in operation. And while planning for a larger party, because of the limited selection, I would rather eat (pun intended) the cost of ordering two smaller, round cakes in each flavor than opt for one large cake of either just vanilla or chocolate.

Also, as a thrifty hack, I’d recommend filling out a wedding cake buffet table with Costco’s offerings to help make up for the exorbitant cost of highly coveted and stylized wedding cakes, meant mostly for photos and tailored to the couple’s taste.