Calamari in Long Island City

12 restaurants in Long Island City list calamari on their menus. The cheapest is Caffe Buon Gusto at $6.95. The typical price across town is $17.95, and the dearest we found is $24.00 at Osteria Brooklyn, so the two ends of the list are $17.05 apart, which is 245% more for the same dish. Of the 12 kitchens listed, 6 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 3 sit within a dollar of it and 3 charge more than a dollar over.

We track calamari in 493 other areas and compare them all on calamari across United States. The typical price there runs $15.42 at the median, so Long Island City is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 78 of the 493. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at French Quarter Grille in Austin, TX, and the highest best price is $19.75 in Harwood Heights, IL. The nearest area with it is Sunnyside, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $13.00.

Where is the cheapest calamari in Long Island City? Caffe Buon Gusto, at $6.95 on 236 East 77th Street. The same dish reaches $24.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $17.05.

What should calamari cost here? About $17.95 is the typical price across the 12 kitchens in Long Island City that list it. Of the ones listed above, 6 are more than a dollar below that and 3 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 Sunnyside, about 2 mi away, where the best price is $13.00. That is $6.05 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.