Costco’s famous $1.50 hot dog and soda combo is more than a great lunch.
It is an object of corporate mythology, a anti-inflation icon and most recently a popular TikTok t-shirt design.
A quick Google search for “Costco hot dog shirt” comes up dozens of results from retailers across the site with the simple signage designs found at every Costco food court.
They quickly went viral on the web thanks to a TikTok goes viral from Eaton printing house.
Jacob, the artist behind his last name request page, was working on a project in March where he released a new poster design “every day until I ran out of ideas. “
“I had the idea to draw it,” Jacob said of the Costco sign. “I’ve never seen anyone illustrate it. I’ve put together some pictures that I could find online and I’ve created an illustration based on that.”
He created the artwork in Photoshop and uploaded it to his site. The post quickly went viral, garnering nearly 2 million views and more than 240,000 likes, as well as comments demanding a tee.
He obliged, and since then Jacob says he has sold hundreds Shirt And prints of his artwork.
Each print featured the now famous line that Costco CEO Craig Jelinek said founder Jim Sinegal uttered when Jelinek suggested that a profit above a quarter of a pound was bad for business: ” If you increase [price of the] f — ing sausage, I’ll kill you.”
If you advance [price of the] f — ing sausage, I’ll kill you.
Jim Sinegal
Founder of Costco
The shirts start at $22.95, the equivalent of 15 hot dog and soda combos.
Jacob, who says the design is a bestseller for his hawker work, thinks people want to wear clothes with hot dogs because they feel Costco is a brand on their side.
“Things always seem to get more expensive,” he explains. “It’s refreshing to see a company stand up for its customers instead of trying to extort their money every now and then.”
Rich Erwin, who runs a Chudly store based in Louisville, Ky., starts selling a Costco hot dog t-shirt after discovering the design on the bumper sticker.
He’s seen a spike in sales over the past month and attributes the shirt’s popularity to the “outrageous” level of a deal that combo $1.50.
“If you wear this shirt outside, there will be other people excited about the legend of the $1.50 hot dog from Costco who will see this shirt and come talk to you about it, ” he told Make It.
Despite the popularity of his design, Jacob admits that he’s not really a Costco cardholder.
“I’m not [a member]”, he said. “My girlfriend is, though. So I can go with her from time to time and experience that.”
A representative for Costco declined to comment for this story.
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