Stromboli in Columbia

10 restaurants in Columbia list stromboli on their menus. The cheapest is Pizza Boli's at $9.99, listed as Build Your Own Stromboli. The typical price across town is $14.99, and the dearest we found is $17.50 at Tino's Italian Bistro, so the two ends of the list are $7.51 apart, which is 75% more for the same dish. Of the 10 kitchens listed, 3 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 4 sit within a dollar of it and 3 charge more than a dollar over.

We track stromboli in 456 other areas and compare them all on stromboli across United States. The typical price there runs $13.95 at the median, so Columbia is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 118 of the 456. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at Da Vinci Pizzeria in New York, NY, and the highest best price is $18.29 in Cape May, NJ. The nearest area with it is Elkridge, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $10.99.

Where is the cheapest stromboli in Columbia? Pizza Boli's, at $9.99 on 7060 Oakland Mills Rd. The same dish reaches $17.50 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $7.51.

What should stromboli cost here? About $14.99 is the typical price across the 10 kitchens in Columbia that list it. Of the ones listed above, 3 are more than a dollar below that and 3 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 Elkridge, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $10.99. That is $1.00 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.