A restaurant in South Carolina has been accused of reselling Costco pizzas at a 700% markup as 'gourmet Roman-style thin crust pizza'

A restaurant in South Carolina has been accused of reselling Costco pizzas at a 700% markup as 'gourmet Roman-style thin crust pizza'

A restaurant in South Carolina has been accused of reselling Costco pizzas at a 700% markup as 'gourmet Roman-style thin crust pizza'

Diners and employees accused the restaurant of selling $18 to $20 'gourmet' pizzas that were just frozen Costco pizzas that cost around $2.50 each.

www.businessinsider.com

http://archive.is/37MIG

There's nothing unusual about an $18 to $20 gourmet pizza from an upscale wine bar. But there's definitely something unusual about passing off a $2 to $2.50 frozen pizza from Costco as an $18 to $20 gourmet pizza from an upscale wine bar.

That's what may have been happening at Charleston, South Carolina restaurant Coquin, the Post and Courier first reported.

Coquin opened in October 2019 as a neighborhood tapas and wine bar. Since the coronavirus pandemic prompted sweeping restaurant shutdowns, Coquin, like many other restaurants, has pivoted to delivery. Grimalda told the Post and Courier that he hasn't had to lay off any employees yet, saying the staff is "all kind of busting our butts" to get by.

But this week, diners and Coquin employees tipped off the Post and Courier, saying the $18 to $20 pizzas that Coquin was selling for delivery were actually just frozen Costco pizzas.

Coquin started selling the pizzas on its website last weekend, marketing them on the restaurant's Instagram. The restaurant's owner, Chip Grimalda, says that Coquin has since sold around 20 pizzas a day.


A reporter from the Post and Courier watched Grimalda go from the restaurant to his private apartment after receiving a pizza-delivery order. Grimalda then left to deliver pizzas in boxes marked, "Fresh Pizza, Oven Baked."

The reporter then found four-pack boxes for frozen Costco pizzas in the dumpster outside Coquin. A four-pack of Kirkland Signature Cheese Pizza with Breadcrumb Crusts costs around $10, or $2.50 per pizza. The mark-up if sold for $20 each? 700%.

When asked if he was passing off Costco pizza as homemade, Grimalda told the Post and Courier reporter, "I don't know what you're talking about. It's definitely not Costco, and that's all I have to say."

Business Insider has reached out to Coquin for additional comment.

 

[XYZpdq]

Did they ever get a thread? Because they should have.

Yes, and I think it may have had a special guest.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/amy-bo...alomon-samy-bouzaglo-amys-baking-company.936/

As for the article, yeah those four pack basic frozen pizzas are pretty good if you jazz them up like the pic in the OP, but holy shit that lump in the subsequent post is "you got stoned and forgot the oven was on" levels of bad.

 

[thx1138]

Amy's Baking Company from Kitchen Nightmares was doing this as well.

Gordon Ramsay's restaraunts got busted for selling boil-in-a-bag meals a few years back.

Gordon Ramsay restaurants found to be using pre-prepared meals

Television chef caught out as sting reveals gastro-pub dishes come from off-site kitchen in south London

www.theguardian.com

 

[murgatroid]

Frozen pizza crust can't easily be mistaken for real pizza. I wonder if they had some idiotic spiel about it.

Isn't it cheaper to just make them yourself? Pizza places have some of the best markups ever. It's just flour, yeast, sugar and salt, then you can charge extra for the toppings...

That would involve actual cooking knowledge and effort.

 

[Iron Hamster]

Is this not the basic business model of many restaurants?

The fuckup is buying frozen pizzas yourself at Costco instead of having them delivered at 3AM by Sysco.

Never saw Sysco offer frozen pies though last time I worked in a pizza joint was '99

 

[AnOminous]

I mean, what is it? Flour, water, yeast, some oil, some tomato, and a thin layer of cheese.

And time and labor. Labor is the highest single cost a restaurant with super low cost ingredients has.

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

Patented Skinner Pizzas, old family recipe!

How delightfully devilish, Coquin!

 

[thx1138]

How delightfully devilish, Coquin!

Yes and you call them freshly baked despite the fact that they're obviously thawed.

 

[Robert James]

Bravo, honestly if you can get away with it then your customers deserve to eat shit pizza.

 

[Unpleasant]

A local pizza joint- not a highbrow one, but just cheap decent food- closed down a few years ago when the owner retired. I saw him out and about and made some comment about how the lasagna at the other place in town wasn't nearly as good.

He told me that it was just stouffers lasagna and that I could buy it at the grocery store lmao

 

[Kled]

This is something I'd expect a gastropub or a tapas bar in Downtown Columbia to do. A-at least we're in the news again!

 

[Azovka]

View attachment 1206016

Well, that's the perfect blend of pretentious and vapid.
Also, as an actual Parisian, I fail to see anything French about it except the name. If anything, it looks more Italian than French. Hell, we don't even really do those charcuterie (ham) boards here - it's mostly cheese platters, which incidentally are also some of the easiest markups ever. And the prices seem exorbitant too.

Okay, I just went on their site, and I'm going to spoiler my rant about their deceitful practices and fake "Parisian" cuisine.

Spoiler: French REE

Okay, lets start in order. Their brunch, or "petit-déjeuner" as they pretentiously label it, has nothing brunch-y about it. It's literally just (most likely frozen) croissants, scones, and muffins, the latter having nothing to do with Paris at all. Might've put some "pain au chocolat" aka chocolate bread instead.
Next, onto specialty coffees, the thing is - most French people don't drink coffee with milk. It's traditionally considered haram, as it ruins the taste of coffee. But anyways.

"Tapas" is a dumb name to go for if you aim to be a pretentious Parisians. We call them "entremets" or "amuse-bouches" here. As I mentioned before, ham and cheese boards are the easiest markups ever in the restaurant industry, but even then $24 for it is obscene.

I would also like to point out that, in France at least, baguette / bread isn't part of dishes. It's included for free on every table regardless of what you take (dating back to Napoleon's laws). You literally don't have to type out "with fresh baguette" on every single dish you have (as this hack did) because it should already be served regardless for free.

Also, Calabrian peppers, burrata cheese, marinated olives, and hummus have nothing fucking French.

Another thing that did make me REEee is in their gallery. Here.

They serve ham, cheese, olives and nuts on the same platter, which no normal French or French-inspired restaurant would do. And on top of that, THEY SERVE BAGUETTE ON THE SAME PLATTER TOO. As if it's part of the dish and not just some free bread you get regardless.
For one, it makes them save up some ham and cheese, since baguette takes the space where they would normally put actual more expensive products. So kuddos on the scam here, guys. But what the fuck, seriously.

You also don't serve brie on the same plate as baguette, and you don't douse it in honey yourself. The customer does that himself to his tastes.

Anyways, the only Parisian thing about this restaurant is the obscenely high prices and the décor. The rest is a cheap scam even without their frozen pizza debacle. And I can't believe people fucking fall for this garbage.

 

[mindlessobserver]

A local pizza joint- not a highbrow one, but just cheap decent food- closed down a few years ago when the owner retired. I saw him out and about and made some comment about how the lasagna at the other place in town wasn't nearly as good.

He told me that it was just stouffers lasagna and that I could buy it at the grocery store lmao

Quite a few places will use frozen food. Especially for complicated things like ravioli. If you think your local italian joint goes to the trouble of making their own pasta shells, stuffing, and then try to get some "on probation" dude off the street to make honest to God ravioli, manicotti and so on...I have some bad news.

The smart ones however do make their own sauces, which is where the magic happens. If the sauce is good only a truly in the know person will care/know the difference.

Cant forgive lasagna though. That shit is so fucking easy to make in huge batches and then store for extended periods until you need it. Best part about it is you can use your leftover meat that hasn't sold yet in it. Steak scraps, unsold burgers and the like. Get all that simmering in the marinara for your meat sauce and after that all you need is your noodle, ricotta and mozzarella. Easy.

 

[Sped Xing]

Never saw Sysco offer frozen pies though last time I worked in a pizza joint was '99

I've seen what Sysco receives. Everything.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Quite a few places will use frozen food. Especially for complicated things like ravioli. If you think your local italian joint goes to the trouble of making their own pasta shells, stuffing, and then try to get some "on probation" dude off the street to make honest to God ravioli, manicotti and so on...I have some bad news.

The smart ones however do make their own sauces, which is where the magic happens. If the sauce is good only a truly in the know person will care/know the difference.

Cant forgive lasagna though. That shit is so fucking easy to make in huge batches and then store for extended periods until you need it. Best part about it is you can use your leftover meat that hasn't sold yet in it. Steak scraps, unsold burgers and the like. Get all that simmering in the marinara for your meat sauce and after that all you need is your noodle, ricotta and mozzarella. Easy.

I've been to places that make their own noodles and you can tell the difference because the noodles will be sticky, it's just that every place that claims to make their own pasta has always somehow ruined the sauce. Like i remember eating at once place and the red sauce would constantly shift from an overly sweet taste to a balsamic vinegar taste, it was pretty bad. I know some places that have decided to go overly overly fucking eccentric do shit like candy their tomatoes before adding them to the sauce or will dump some expensive whisky or brandy in their red sauce to jack up the price, but it's like you ruin it with shit like that. Cooking isn't about throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I've been to places that make their own noodles and you can tell the difference because the noodles will be sticky, it's just that every place that claims to make their own pasta has always somehow ruined the sauce. Like i remember eating at once place and the red sauce would constantly shift from an overly sweet taste to a balsamic vinegar taste, it was pretty bad. I know some places that have decided to go overly overly fucking eccentric do shit like candy their tomatoes before adding them to the sauce or will dump some expensive whisky or brandy in their red sauce to jack up the price, but it's like you ruin it with shit like that. Cooking isn't about throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.

When I make tomato sauce it's literally just tomatoes, onions, garlic, red pepper flakes and olive oil/butter. Simmer for 4 hours. Easy. When it comes to sauces simplicity is the best. Get creative with what you are putting the sauce on, not the sauce itself. Even putting salt in tomato sauce is a mistake. You are already going to salt the noodles or meat you will be using. Adding salt to the sauce just means salt on salt. Anyone who adds sugar or vinegar will be shot. The tomatos and garlic are sweet and sour enough on their own

 

[AnOminous]

Bravo, honestly if you can get away with it then your customers deserve to eat shit pizza.

Fraud is always bad and always illegal and should always be punished, because by tolerating it, we degrade society itself and the networks of trust that any decent society requires.

 

[murdered meat bag]

Fraud is always bad and always illegal and should always be punished, because by tolerating it, we degrade society itself and the networks of trust that any decent society requires.

on the other hand

Caveat emptor

 

[Robert James]

Fraud is always bad and always illegal and should always be punished, because by tolerating it, we degrade society itself and the networks of trust that any decent society requires.

I get were you're comming from companies have been running roughshot with truth in advertisement but this is a small business being lazy. Unless they have a speel about how the pizza is tossed by hand or how they make the sauce it's technically not fraud.

 

[Ebonic Tutor]

I get were you're comming from companies have been running roughshot with truth in advertisement but this is a small business being lazy. Unless they have a speel about how the pizza is tossed by hand or how they make the sauce it's technically not fraud.

I imagine you could even rules lawyer your way past those type of claims as well. Misleading, most definitely but still sort of true.

Not that one though, those people can get fucked trying to give me a Red Barron like it's some sort of delicacy.

 

[AnOminous]

I get were you're comming from companies have been running roughshot with truth in advertisement but this is a small business being lazy. Unless they have a speel about how the pizza is tossed by hand or how they make the sauce it's technically not fraud.

They kind of fucked up touting it as some kind of specialty pizza with "Roman-style crust" and drawing attention to the crust, easily the worst part of any frozen pizza. They probably wouldn't have got in any trouble at all had they just called it pizza or bought food service quality pizzas from some restaurant supply place. It's also just not that goddamn difficult to make pizza.

This was very stupid, short-sighted, Amy's Baking Company level bullshit. At least they haven't been chimping out on social media, but they probably doomed their business. Restaurants usually go belly up within a year anyway even when things don't go disastrously, and now you have this bad press combined with a global catastrophe. They may deserve it, but they're pretty fucked.

They'd have been better off getting shut down by the health inspector for being filthy because nobody cares about that (at least until recently). Some of my favorite restaurants have been repeatedly shut down for shit like that.