Cheeseburger in Des Moines

8 restaurants in Des Moines list cheeseburger on their menus. The cheapest is Zombie Burger + Bird at $7.50. The typical price across town is $13.00, and the dearest we found is $16.50 at Skip's, so the two ends of the list are $9.00 apart, which is 120% more for the same dish. Of the 8 kitchens listed, 4 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 3 sit within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track cheeseburger in 336 other areas and compare them all on cheeseburger across United States. The typical price there runs $11.23 at the median, so Des Moines is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 63 of the 336. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.25 at Dominion Pizza in Lancaster, PA, and the highest best price is $14.99 in Santa Clara, CA. The nearest area with it is West Des Moines, about 10 mi away, where the best price is $8.00.

Where is the cheapest cheeseburger in Des Moines? Zombie Burger + Bird, at $7.50 on 300 East Grand Avenue. The same dish reaches $16.50 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $9.00.

What should cheeseburger cost here? About $13.00 is the typical price across the 8 kitchens in Des Moines that list it. Of the ones listed above, 4 are 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 West Des Moines, about 10 mi away, where the best price is $8.00. That is $0.50 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.