Onion Rings in Chicago

53 restaurants in Chicago list onion rings on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Reggio's Pizza at $4.25. The typical price across town is $7.00, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $8.95 at Golden Pizzeria, so the two ends of the list are $4.70 apart, which is 111% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 16 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 19 sit within a dollar of it and 5 charge more than a dollar over.

We track onion rings in 500 other areas and compare them all on onion rings across United States. The typical price there runs $7.95 at the median, so Chicago is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 321 of the 500. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Lucky's Burger and Brews in Marietta, GA, and the highest best price is $11.00 in Bellevue, WA. The nearest area with it is Berwyn, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $5.99.

Where is the cheapest onion rings in Chicago? Reggio's Pizza, at $4.25 on 8548 South Cottage Grove Avenue. The same dish reaches $8.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.70.

What should onion rings cost here? About $7.00 is the typical price across the 53 kitchens in Chicago that list it. Of the ones listed above, 16 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 Berwyn, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $5.99. That is $1.74 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.