Pizza in El Cajon

17 restaurants in El Cajon list pizza on their menus. The cheapest is Chicago Pizza Company at $8.95, listed as Thin Crust Cheese Pizza. The typical price across town is $13.99, and the dearest we found is $26.99 at New York Giant Pizza, so the two ends of the list are $18.04 apart, which is 202% more for the same dish. Of the 17 kitchens listed, 6 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 4 sit within a dollar of it and 7 charge more than a dollar over.

We track pizza in 1058 other areas and compare them all on pizza across United States. The typical price there runs $13.95 at the median, so El Cajon is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 471 of the 1058. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.49 at Bellacino's Pizza & Grinders in Troy, MI, and the highest best price is $18.00 in Tacoma, WA. The nearest area with it is Santee, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $9.99.

Where is the cheapest pizza in El Cajon? Chicago Pizza Company, at $8.95 on 1466 Graves Ave. The same dish reaches $26.99 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $18.04.

What should pizza cost here? About $13.99 is the typical price across the 17 kitchens in El Cajon that list it. Of the ones listed above, 6 are more than a dollar below that and 7 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 Santee, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $9.99. That is $1.04 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.