Cheeseburger in Detroit

4 restaurants in Detroit list cheeseburger on their menus. The cheapest is Mama's Family Restaurant at $7.49. The typical price across town is $11.99, and the dearest we found is $12.40 at Papa's Pizza & BBQ, so the two ends of the list are $4.91 apart, which is 66% more for the same dish. Of the 4 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 0 charge more than a dollar over.

We track cheeseburger in 339 other areas and compare them all on cheeseburger across United States. The typical price there runs $11.24 at the median, so Detroit is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 129 of the 339. 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 Dearborn Heights, about 6 mi away, where the best price is $8.99.

Where is the cheapest cheeseburger in Detroit? Mama's Family Restaurant, at $7.49 on 14620 East 8 Mile Road. The same dish reaches $12.40 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.91.

What should cheeseburger cost here? About $11.99 is the typical price across the 4 kitchens in Detroit that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are more than a dollar below that and 0 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 Dearborn Heights, about 6 mi away, where the best price is $8.99. That is $1.50 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.