Costco's $1.49 Churro Returns Amid Kohl's 1,400 Hires
Costco is bringing back its twisted churro for a limited time at $1.49 after removing it in January 2024, while Kohl's adds 1,400 seasonal positions. Both moves show how retailers are balancing consumer loyalty with holiday workforce needs heading into Q4.
Retail briefing
Key takeaways
- Costco is bringing back its twisted churro for a limited time at $1.49 after removing it in January 2024, while Kohl's adds 1,400 seasonal positions.
- Both moves show how retailers are balancing consumer loyalty with holiday workforce needs heading into Q4.
In this briefing
Mentioned
Key Intelligence
Key Facts
- 1Kohl's is hiring 1,400 temporary positions across Southern California, spanning local stores and distribution/e-fulfillment centers.
- 2In-store seasonal roles pay $17 to $24 per hour; warehouse roles pay $18 to nearly $27 hourly.
- 3A $1.25 hourly premium applies to overnight warehouse positions.
- 4Seasonal roles include truck unloader, stockroom associate, retail associate, beauty adviser, and overnight stockroom worker.
- 5Applicants can apply at Careers.Kohls.com/seasonal or text 'APPLY' to 24508.
- 6Costco brought back the twisted churro for a limited time at $1.49, after removing it in January 2024; the hot dog and drink combo remains $1.50, a price held since 1985.
| Food Court Item | ||
|---|---|---|
| Hot dog + drink | $1.50 | Menu staple since 1985 |
| Twisted churro | $1.49 | Returned limited time Sept 2026 |
| Chocolate chip cookie | $2.49 | Introduced Jan 2024 |
Analysis
For retail operators, Costco's churro return is a masterclass in using a low-cost menu item to re-engage members and drive foot traffic. At the same time, Kohl's is preparing for holiday demand by hiring 1,400 temporary workers across stores and e-fulfillment centers, with warehouse wages up to nearly $27 per hour. Together, they highlight the dual pressures of consumer sentiment and labor costs shaping the retail sector this season.
On September 28, 2026, the Orange County Register and San Bernardino Sun both reported on a cluster of workforce and retail developments across Southern California. The most substantial item: Kohl's announced plans to hire 1,400 temporary positions across the region. The hiring spans local stores and the retailer's distribution and e-fulfillment centers, with job listings revealing not just the scale but the wage structure. In-store roles pay between $17 and $24 per hour, while warehouse positions pay between $18 and almost $27 hourly, plus a $1.25 hourly premium for overnight shifts. Roles listed include truck unloaders, stockroom associates, retail associates, beauty advisers, and overnight stockroom workers. Applications are being accepted through Careers.Kohls.com/seasonal or by texting 'APPLY' to 24508.
In-store roles pay between $17 and $24 per hour, while warehouse positions pay between $18 and almost $27 hourly, plus a $1.25 hourly premium for overnight shifts.
This seasonal hiring push offers a granular window into the 2026 holiday labor market. The wage spread between store and warehouse roles—up to nearly $27 per hour for warehouse work—signals that distribution and e-fulfillment jobs remain the most competitive segment for retail talent. The $1.25-per-hour overnight premium is a classic shift differential, but its appearance in seasonal staffing suggests employers are using targeted pay incentives to fill less desirable shifts rather than raising base wages across the board. For HR leaders, the Kohl's data is a benchmark: any retailer competing for Southern California seasonal workers must now reckon with a wage floor around $17 for store roles and closer to $18 for warehouse roles, with premium pay for overnight shifts.
The article title also references Goodwill opening a CVS training lab, though the published excerpts do not provide operational details. Even so, the announcement itself is meaningful for workforce development. Goodwill, a nonprofit known for job training and placement, partnering with CVS Health to create a pharmacy or healthcare training facility suggests a targeted effort to build a pipeline of certified pharmacy technicians or customer service workers for CVS stores. In a tight labor market, such partnerships are increasingly important for filling specialized roles and providing underemployed workers with credentialed pathways. The lack of detail should not obscure the strategic signal: community-based organizations are becoming direct feeders into corporate healthcare talent pipelines.
What to Watch
At the same time, the roundup includes a consumer-facing retail development: Costco brought back its twisted churro as a limited-time item at $1.49. The chain removed the item in January 2024 and replaced it with a 750-calorie chocolate chip cookie priced at $2.49; the hot dog and drink combo has held at $1.50 since 1985. Costco teased the return on social media last week, and on Monday, September 27, the company's Instagram featured a video montage of an employee placing the churro sign back on the menu with a limited-time sticker. At least one member reported buying a churro at the Murrieta location on Tuesday evening, September 28. The return illustrates how low-priced, nostalgic food-court items can drive member engagement, foot traffic, and social media conversation without requiring a permanent menu commitment.
For Kohl's, the key unknown is how many of these 1,400 temporary roles convert to permanent positions and whether the wage levels pressure margins during the holiday season. For Goodwill and CVS, the training lab's next milestone will be placement rates for graduates and whether the model scales to other regions. For Costco, the limited-time churro is a consumer sentiment test—if sales outperform, the item may return permanently, but the chain's history suggests limited-time offers are used to create urgency without committing to permanent menu changes. Together, these developments illustrate the intersecting pressures of labor availability, workforce development, and consumer loyalty shaping the retail sector heading into the critical fourth quarter.
Timeline
Timeline
Costco removes churro
Costco removed the twisted churro from its food court menu and replaced it with a 750-calorie chocolate chip cookie.
Costco teases fan favorite return
Costco teased on social media that a fan favorite was coming back; commenters quickly guessed the churro.
Instagram reveal
Costco's Instagram account featured a video montage of an employee putting the churro sign back on the food court menu with a limited-time sticker.
Churro spotted at Murrieta
At least one Costco member reported having a churro at the Murrieta location on Tuesday evening.
Cite This Page
"Costco's $1.49 Churro Returns Amid Kohl's 1,400 Hires." Retail Intelligence Brief, September 29, 2026. https://getretailbrief.com/story/costco-churro-return-kohls-seasonal-hiring
How we covered this story
Every story in our retail coverage is assembled from multiple primary sources, cross-referenced for factual consistency, and scored along three independent dimensions: sentiment, operational impact, and source-cluster confidence. Single-source rumors and unverifiable claims do not pass our editorial gate. When a story shows "Verified by N sources" with N≥2, the development is independently corroborated; when N=1, we mark it explicitly so readers can weigh the signal accordingly.
Impact scoring uses a 1-10 scale weighted toward regulatory, financial, and operational consequence rather than coverage volume. A topic that runs in every outlet but moves no real decisions ranks lower than a niche regulatory filing that reshapes how operators in the retail space have to behave. Read our full methodology for the scoring rubric, our glossary for term definitions, and our trends index for the longitudinal view across the beat.
Sources are only linked to a story once they clear our classification pipeline at a minimum 35 percent relevance threshold. According to that methodology, reviewed July 2026, this follows multi-source corroboration standards recommended by journalism research bodies such as the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
See something wrong in this story — a wrong fact, a broken source link, a misattributed entity? Report a data issue.
| Signal on this page | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Verified by N sources | Independent corroboration count. N≥2 is our confidence floor; N=1 is marked explicitly. |
| Impact score (1-10) | Regulatory + financial + operational weight. 8+ signals an experienced-operator action item. |
| Sentiment | Five-tier classification trained on labeled retail-specific corpora. |
| Timeline | Where applicable, the related-events sequence that contextualizes today's development. |