Chicken Soup in Edison

4 restaurants in Edison list chicken soup on their menus. The cheapest is Fratelli's Pizza at $5.00. The typical price across town is $6.95, and the dearest we found is $9.95 at Cafe Gallo Pizzeria & Ristorante, so the two ends of the list are $4.95 apart, which is 99% 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 chicken soup in 10 other areas and compare them all on chicken soup across United States. The typical price there runs $7.95 at the median, so Edison is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 8 of the 10. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at Simon's Kitchen in Ridgewood, NY, and the highest best price is $7.95 in Mahwah, NJ. The nearest area with it is Metuchen, about 1 mi away, where the best price is $6.50.

Where is the cheapest chicken soup in Edison? Fratelli's Pizza, at $5.00 on 999 Amboy Ave. The same dish reaches $9.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.95.

What should chicken soup cost here? About $6.95 is the typical price across the 4 kitchens in Edison 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 Metuchen, about 1 mi away, where the best price is $6.50. 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.