Pizza in Chicago

125 restaurants in Chicago list pizza on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Naples Pizza at $5.50, listed as Cheese Pizza. The typical price across town is $14.75, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $12.99 at Rosati's Pizza, so the two ends of the list are $7.49 apart, which is 136% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 40 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 0 sit within a dollar of it and 0 charge more than a dollar over.

We track pizza in 1058 other areas and compare them all on pizza across United States. The typical price there runs $13.95 at the median, so Chicago is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 368 of the 1058. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.49 at Bellacino's Pizza & Grinders in Troy, MI, and the highest best price is $18.00 in Tacoma, WA. The nearest area with it is Cicero, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $13.95.

Where is the cheapest pizza in Chicago? Naples Pizza, at $5.50 on 2819 W 63rd St. The same dish reaches $12.99 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $7.49.

What should pizza cost here? About $14.75 is the typical price across the 125 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 40 are more than a dollar below that and 0 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 $13.95. That is $8.45 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.