Calamari in Columbia

9 restaurants in Columbia list calamari on their menus. The cheapest is Gateway Pizza at $6.99, listed as Fried calamari. The typical price across town is $16.50, and the dearest we found is $23.00 at The Blackwall Barn & Lodge, so the two ends of the list are $16.01 apart, which is 229% more for the same dish. Of the 9 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 3 sit within a dollar of it and 4 charge more than a dollar over.

We track calamari in 493 other areas and compare them all on calamari across United States. The typical price there runs $15.42 at the median, so Columbia is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 156 of the 493. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at French Quarter Grille in Austin, TX, and the highest best price is $19.75 in Harwood Heights, IL. The nearest area with it is Ellicott City, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $10.99.

Where is the cheapest calamari in Columbia? Gateway Pizza, at $6.99 on 10840 Little Patuxent Pkwy. The same dish reaches $23.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $16.01.

What should calamari cost here? About $16.50 is the typical price across the 9 kitchens in Columbia that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are more than a dollar below that and 4 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 Ellicott City, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $10.99. That is $4.00 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.