Garlic Bread in Chicago

48 restaurants in Chicago list garlic bread on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Via Carducci La Sorella at $4.00. The typical price across town is $5.95, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $8.10 at Williams Inn Pizza & Sports Bar, so the two ends of the list are $4.10 apart, which is 102% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 13 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 22 sit within a dollar of it and 5 charge more than a dollar over.

We track garlic bread in 315 other areas and compare them all on garlic bread across United States. The typical price there runs $6.25 at the median, so Chicago is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 227 of the 315. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Fortunato Brothers Pizza in Baltimore, MD, and the highest best price is $7.99 in Manchester, NH. The nearest area with it is Elmhurst, about 12 mi away, where the best price is $4.20.

Where is the cheapest garlic bread in Chicago? Via Carducci La Sorella, at $4.00 on 1928 W Division St. The same dish reaches $8.10 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.10.

What should garlic bread cost here? About $5.95 is the typical price across the 48 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 13 are more than a dollar below that and 5 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 Elmhurst, about 12 mi away, where the best price is $4.20. That is $0.20 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.