Fried Shrimp in Charleston

3 restaurants in Charleston list fried shrimp on their menus. The cheapest is California Dreaming at $6.95. The typical price across town is $10.00, and the dearest we found is $12.00 at Amen Street, so the two ends of the list are $5.05 apart, which is 73% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track fried shrimp in 46 other areas and compare them all on fried shrimp across United States. The typical price there runs $16.95 at the median, so Charleston is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 44 of the 46. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $5.99 at Picatta Pizza & Pasta in Houston, TX, and the highest best price is $21.75 in Montclair, NJ. The nearest area with it is Myrtle Beach, about 86 mi away, where the best price is $6.95.

Where is the cheapest fried shrimp in Charleston? California Dreaming, at $6.95 on 1 Ashley Point Drive. The same dish reaches $12.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $5.05.

What should fried shrimp cost here? About $10.00 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Charleston that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is more than a dollar below that and 1 is 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 Myrtle Beach, about 86 mi away, where the best price is $6.95. That is the same as 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.