Friday, January 27, 2012

Entertaining the Costco Way

This gem found its way into our house last night through a white elephant gift exchange. My wife "stole" it since she knows how much I love Costco.

Honestly, I have no idea what's inside but it may contain the secret of how many servings are in a Costco sheet cake. According to close friends Jason and Erin, there are three servings. One for Jason, one for Erin and the last one for breakfast the next day.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Costco Construction in the Snow

Ok, so I'm a few days behind in posting pictures. This one is from 1/21/12. Here you can see the snow mentioned in the previous post and the workers on the roof.

With the snow in the picture, it's a fitting time to talk about a good customer service experience at Costco. Recently, Costco transferred snow tires from one set of wheels to another set of wheels and replaced the Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) fittings. With the balmy weather, I procrastinated in switching out the wheels on my wife's car. The first trip out in the car, a tire goes completely flat. On closer inspection, the TPMS valve stem is very loose and air can be heard wheezing in and out like a pack a day smoker. To make matters worse, the tire sidewall is damaged beyond repair due to the quick and complete loss of air pressure.

I called up the Costco that did the work, which is about an hour away, and told them what happened. I asked the manager to order a replacement tire since I didn't want to make two trips. Long story, just a little bit shorter, they had trouble finding the replacement tire due to low inventory at this point in the season, they replaced the year old tire with a brand new tire and were truly apologetic about the inconvenience of the entire situation. Overall, they handled the situation up to my expectation.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Costco Construction and University of Michigan Basketball

This picture of the Ann Arbor Costco was taken a few days ago on 1/18/12. Since then we've been hit with days of sub-freezing temperature and snow. Construction has not slowed down at all.

The bad weather didn't stop a sell out crowd from packing Crisler Center in Ann Arbor to watch the University of Michigan men's basketball team beat Michigan State University. (link to ESPN) It was a tight game that came down to the last possession. Michigan State missed two shots in the closing seconds to seal their fate against Michigan. At the buzzer, the crowd went crazy. It was a great night for Wolverine Nation that ended with a victory and the singing of the Victors.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Roof Installation

The roof is being installed and more of the South facing walls have been laid. The weather has been very mild recently, maybe that will help things get done faster. Although, I'm expecting a wicked February.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Costco and Pittsfield Township Liquor License

A friend sent this link about Pittsfield Township denying Costco's request for a Specially Designated Distributor Liquor License (link to annarbor.com). Let's take a look at this one point at a time with the details from the article.

  1. Target on Waters Rd, Target on Carpenter Rd and Costco requested a Specially Designated Distributor Liquor License which allows retailers to sell liquor.

    This sounds reasonable. Why wouldn't these retailers want to expand their product offerings for their customer's convenience and increase the store's revenue potential? This seems to be a separate license required to sell packaged liquor instead of beer and wine as both Target locations currently sell wine. Since Costco is known for their wine selection and competitive prices, it would be hard to imagine them without the ability to sell wine.
  2. Target on Carpenter Rd was denied a liquor license due to it being 500 feet from a residential area while Target on Waters Rd was approved.

    I'm not sure if this rule applies to the building proper or the property line but Target on Waters Rd is close to a residential area. On the surface, the 500 ft. rule reported in the story doesn't seem to pass the sniff test. In the comments associated with the story, there's mention of a liquor store on Ellsworth Rd. that's surrounded by apartments and a Co-Op which appears to defy the 500 ft. rule. I can't comment either way as this store may have been grandfathered in depending on when the 500 ft ordinance had been passed or it falls outside of 500 ft.
  3. Target on Waters Rd. was granted the liquor license instead of Costco. This decision was based on Target applying for the license before Costco and only one license being available.

    This sounds fair. Target applied first and is currently operating their business. Why provide a license to a business under construction?
Although the article appears to contain contradictory information, this story seems to be a non-issue. I'll wait to see what happens next year when Costco opens and re-applies for the license.