Cheese Fries in Chicago

31 restaurants in Chicago list cheese fries on their menus. The cheapest is Naples Pizza at $4.00. The typical price across town is $5.95, and the dearest we found is $8.39 at Waldo Cooney's Pizza, so the two ends of the list are $4.39 apart, which is 110% more for the same dish. Of the 31 kitchens listed, 9 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 14 sit within a dollar of it and 8 charge more than a dollar over.

We track cheese fries in 138 other areas and compare them all on cheese fries across United States. The typical price there runs $7.97 at the median, so Chicago is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 135 of the 138. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at street bites in Durham, NC, and the highest best price is $10.30 in Miami Beach, FL. The nearest area with it is Cicero, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $4.99.

Where is the cheapest cheese fries in Chicago? Naples Pizza, at $4.00 on 2819 W 63rd St. The same dish reaches $8.39 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.39.

What should cheese fries cost here? About $5.95 is the typical price across the 31 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 9 are more than a dollar below that and 8 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 Cicero, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $4.99. That is $0.99 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.