French Fries in Honolulu

4 restaurants in Honolulu list french fries on their menus. The cheapest is Kamakura Surf + Dine at $4.00. The typical price across town is $8.95, and the dearest we found is $10.00 at CJ’s New York Style Delicatessen, so the two ends of the list are $6.00 apart, which is 150% more for the same dish. Of the 4 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track french fries in 498 other areas and compare them all on french fries across United States. The typical price there runs $6.49 at the median, so Honolulu is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 10 of the 498. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Big Tony's Pizza II in Chicago, IL, and the highest best price is $7.50 in Seaford, NY. The nearest area with it is San Francisco, about 2392 mi away, where the best price is $4.75.

Where is the cheapest french fries in Honolulu? Kamakura Surf + Dine, at $4.00 on 2380 Kuhio Avenue. The same dish reaches $10.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $6.00.

What should french fries cost here? About $8.95 is the typical price across the 4 kitchens in Honolulu that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are 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 San Francisco, about 2392 mi away, where the best price is $4.75. That is $0.75 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.