Poutine in Calgary

12 restaurants in Calgary list poutine on their menus. The cheapest is Great Canadian Pizza at $6.00. The typical price across town is $12.95, and the dearest we found is $22.00 at Blue Star Diner, so the two ends of the list are $16.00 apart, which is 267% more for the same dish. Of the 12 kitchens listed, 6 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 4 charge more than a dollar over.

We track poutine in 40 other areas and compare them all on poutine across Canada. The typical price there runs $10.99 at the median, so Calgary is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 13 of the 40. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Cramdon's Tap & Eatery in Windsor, ON, and the highest best price is $12.00 in Banff, AB. The nearest area with it is Banff, about 125 km away, where the best price is $12.00.

Where is the cheapest poutine in Calgary? Great Canadian Pizza, at $6.00 on 1218 16 Avenue NW. The same dish reaches $22.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $16.00.

What should poutine cost here? About $12.95 is the typical price across the 12 kitchens in Calgary that list it. Of the ones listed above, 6 are more than a dollar below that and 4 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 Banff, about 125 km away, where the best price is $12.00. That is $6.00 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.