Calamari in Albany

8 restaurants in Albany list calamari on their menus. The cheapest is Cafe Lark at $8.99, listed as Fried Calamari. The typical price across town is $14.00, and the dearest we found is $26.00 at 677 Prime, so the two ends of the list are $17.01 apart, which is 189% more for the same dish. Of the 8 kitchens listed, 4 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 3 charge more than a dollar over.

We track calamari in 493 other areas and compare them all on calamari across United States. The typical price there runs $15.45 at the median, so Albany is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 355 of the 493. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at French Quarter Grille in Austin, TX, and the highest best price is $19.75 in Harwood Heights, IL. The nearest area with it is Troy, about 7 mi away, where the best price is $10.99.

Where is the cheapest calamari in Albany? Cafe Lark, at $8.99 on 452 Madison Ave. The same dish reaches $26.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $17.01.

What should calamari cost here? About $14.00 is the typical price across the 8 kitchens in Albany that list it. Of the ones listed above, 4 are more than a dollar below that and 3 are more than a dollar above, so the typical price is a middle rather than a floor.

Is it cheaper nearby? The nearest area we track it in is Troy, about 7 mi away, where the best price is $10.99. That is $2.00 more than the best price here.

Why do the prices differ so much? We compare what each menu calls the same dish, and menus are not identical: portion, cut, sides and the kind of room you are sitting in all ride on the price, and none of that shows up in a number. Part portions and half sizes are kept out of this comparison, and a chain charging the same at several addresses is counted once, so the spread above is between genuinely different kitchens rather than the same one repeated.