Lentil Soup in Jamaica

6 restaurants in Jamaica list lentil soup on their menus. The cheapest is Perfecto Pizza at $4.99. The typical price across town is $6.50, and the dearest we found is $8.00 at Due Fratelli, so the two ends of the list are $3.01 apart, which is 60% more for the same dish. Of the 6 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 4 sit within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track lentil soup in 15 other areas and compare them all on lentil soup across United States. The typical price there runs $8.27 at the median, so Jamaica is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 15 of the 15. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $5.00 at Mike's Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant in Bayonne, NJ, and the highest best price is $8.02 in Massapequa Park, NY. The nearest area with it is Ozone Park, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $5.50.

Where is the cheapest lentil soup in Jamaica? Perfecto Pizza, at $4.99 on 16923 Jamaica Ave. The same dish reaches $8.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $3.01.

What should lentil soup cost here? About $6.50 is the typical price across the 6 kitchens in Jamaica 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 Ozone Park, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $5.50. That is $0.51 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.