It’s called a “Costco door” — a grocery-sized shortcut between the garage and the pantry or kitchen, built so homeowners can slide everything from 25-pound bags of rice and flour to cases of drinks straight from the trunk into the house, no carrying heavy grocery bags required.
“One of my favourite things about this house is the Costco door,” interior designer Anna Joy said in an Instagram reel, showing off an opening that leads directly from the garage into the pantry. “So you don’t have to walk a mile to put your groceries inside.”
Why homeowners are saying yes
Costco shoppers are already used to buying big. Numerator data shows executive members spend an average of $4,629 a year at the warehouse club and make about 36 trips annually, compared with $2,252 and 21 trips for Gold Star members.
That’s a lot of toilet paper, cases of sparkling water and family-sized everything that’s making the journey from the trunk to the kitchen. For homeowners who regularly pull into the garage with a Costco haul taking up half the car, paying a little extra to shorten that journey can start to feel less like a luxury and more like a convenience.
Jay Roberts, a builder with custom home company Canyon Point, said about half of his customers now ask for a 2-by-2-foot Costco door.
“When you tell someone it’s roughly a thousand bucks to put one in, they’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s a no-brainer — why would we not do that?’” Roberts told The Washington Post.
For Asmaa Hussain, the Costco door has another name: the “doggy door.”
Hussain lives with her husband, two children, her mother and her mother-in-law, and often cooks for groups of up to 50 people. After seeing Costco doors on social media, she decided to add one during a home renovation. Now, instead of carrying a giant grocery haul through the house, she can move it straight from the garage into the kitchen.
What to consider before buying into the hype
Homeowners are constantly finding new ways to make their spaces work a little harder for them, and they’re willing to spend to do it. More than half of U.S. homeowners renovated their homes in 2025, according to Houzz, with the typical renovator spending about $20,000.
