Chili Cheese Fries in Detroit

3 restaurants in Detroit list chili cheese fries on their menus. The cheapest is Happy's Pizza at $5.25. The typical price across town is $7.99, and the dearest we found is $8.49 at Mama's Family Restaurant, so the two ends of the list are $3.24 apart, which is 62% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges 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 chili cheese fries in 6 other areas and compare them all on chili cheese fries across United States. The typical price there runs $11.95 at the median, so Detroit is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 4 of the 6. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $5.50 at Zombie Burger + Bird in Des Moines, IA, and the highest best price is $12.09 in Ann Arbor, MI. The nearest area with it is Ann Arbor, about 27 mi away, where the best price is $12.09.

Where is the cheapest chili cheese fries in Detroit? Happy's Pizza, at $5.25 on 11025 Morang Ave. The same dish reaches $8.49 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $3.24.

What should chili cheese fries cost here? About $7.99 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Detroit that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is 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 Ann Arbor, about 27 mi away, where the best price is $12.09. That is $6.84 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.