Cheeseburger in Chicago

49 restaurants in Chicago list cheeseburger on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Burrito House at $4.80. The typical price across town is $10.39, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $13.50 at Falcon's Handcrafted Sandwiches, so the two ends of the list are $8.70 apart, which is 181% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 22 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 7 sit within a dollar of it and 11 charge more than a dollar over.

We track cheeseburger in 336 other areas and compare them all on cheeseburger across United States. The typical price there runs $11.24 at the median, so Chicago is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 219 of the 336. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.25 at Dominion Pizza in Lancaster, PA, and the highest best price is $14.99 in Santa Clara, CA. The nearest area with it is Harwood Heights, about 9 mi away, where the best price is $10.59.

Where is the cheapest cheeseburger in Chicago? Burrito House, at $4.80 on 3718 N Elston Ave. The same dish reaches $13.50 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $8.70.

What should cheeseburger cost here? About $10.39 is the typical price across the 49 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 22 are more than a dollar below that and 11 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 Harwood Heights, about 9 mi away, where the best price is $10.59. That is $5.79 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.