Lasagna in Columbia

5 restaurants in Columbia list lasagna on their menus. The cheapest is Pizza Boli's at $10.99. The typical price across town is $16.99, and the dearest we found is $28.86 at Tino's Italian Bistro, so the two ends of the list are $17.87 apart, which is 163% more for the same dish. Of the 5 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 2 charge more than a dollar over.

We track lasagna in 609 other areas and compare them all on lasagna across United States. The typical price there runs $17.50 at the median, so Columbia is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 342 of the 609. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $6.00 at Vitale's Sports Bar Ada in Grand Rapids, MI, and the highest best price is $26.00 in Memphis, TN. The nearest area with it is Ellicott City, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $13.99.

Where is the cheapest lasagna in Columbia? Pizza Boli's, at $10.99 on 7060 Oakland Mills Rd. The same dish reaches $28.86 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $17.87.

What should lasagna cost here? About $16.99 is the typical price across the 5 kitchens in Columbia that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is more than a dollar below that and 2 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 $13.99. That is $3.00 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.