Fries in Detroit

4 restaurants in Detroit list fries on their menus. The cheapest is Urban Grill at $4.00. The typical price across town is $5.99, and the dearest we found is $8.49 at Pizza & Fish Express, so the two ends of the list are $4.49 apart, which is 112% more for the same dish. Of the 4 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track fries in 21 other areas and compare them all on fries across United States. The typical price there runs $7.00 at the median, so Detroit is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 14 of the 21. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Mildred's Big City Food in Gainesville, FL, and the highest best price is $6.99 in Morgantown, WV. The nearest area with it is Dearborn, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $4.49.

Where is the cheapest fries in Detroit? Urban Grill, at $4.00 on 24311 W 7 Mile Rd. The same dish reaches $8.49 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.49.

What should fries cost here? About $5.99 is the typical price across the 4 kitchens in Detroit 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 Dearborn, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $4.49. That is $0.49 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.