Salad in Elizabeth

15 restaurants in Elizabeth list salad on their menus. The cheapest is Del Pino Bakery & Deli at $4.50, listed as Tuna Salad. The typical price across town is $9.00, and the dearest we found is $11.99 at LEO'S PIZZERIA, so the two ends of the list are $7.49 apart, which is 166% more for the same dish. Of the 15 kitchens listed, 5 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 8 sit within a dollar of it and 2 charge more than a dollar over.

We track salad in 1103 other areas and compare them all on salad across United States. The typical price there runs $9.50 at the median, so Elizabeth is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 608 of the 1103. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Kennedy Pizza & Fried Chicken in Newark, NJ, and the highest best price is $13.95 in Mount Sinai, NY. The nearest area with it is Roselle, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $6.95.

Where is the cheapest salad in Elizabeth? Del Pino Bakery & Deli, at $4.50 on 615 3rd Ave. The same dish reaches $11.99 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $7.49.

What should salad cost here? About $9.00 is the typical price across the 15 kitchens in Elizabeth that list it. Of the ones listed above, 5 are more than a dollar below that and 2 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 Roselle, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $6.95. That is $2.45 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.