Parmigiana in Columbia

3 restaurants in Columbia list parmigiana on their menus. The cheapest is By The Fire Pizza & Restaurant at $15.95, listed as Chicken Parmesan. The typical price across town is $17.99, and the dearest we found is $20.00 at Luca's Wood Fire Pizza & Restaurant, so the two ends of the list are $4.05 apart, which is 25% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track parmigiana in 730 other areas and compare them all on parmigiana across United States. The typical price there runs $18.49 at the median, so Columbia is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 403 of the 730. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.25 at Lione's Pizza in Downingtown, PA, and the highest best price is $24.95 in Mount Sinai, NY. The nearest area with it is Lexington, about 16 mi away, where the best price is $15.98.

Where is the cheapest parmigiana in Columbia? By The Fire Pizza & Restaurant, at $15.95 on 6169 St Andrews Rd. The same dish reaches $20.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.05.

What should parmigiana cost here? About $17.99 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Columbia that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is more than a dollar below that and 1 is 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 Lexington, about 16 mi away, where the best price is $15.98. That is $0.03 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.