French Fries in Los Angeles

18 restaurants in Los Angeles list french fries on their menus. The cheapest is Vincenzo's Pizza of NoHo at $4.15. The typical price across town is $6.75, and the dearest we found is $10.00 at The Waterfront, so the two ends of the list are $5.85 apart, which is 141% more for the same dish. Of the 18 kitchens listed, 6 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 7 sit within a dollar of it and 5 charge more than a dollar over.

We track french fries in 501 other areas and compare them all on french fries across United States. The typical price there runs $6.49 at the median, so Los Angeles is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 188 of the 501. 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 Culver City, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $4.20.

Where is the cheapest french fries in Los Angeles? Vincenzo's Pizza of NoHo, at $4.15 on 11310 Vanowen St. The same dish reaches $10.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $5.85.

What should french fries cost here? About $6.75 is the typical price across the 18 kitchens in Los Angeles that list it. Of the ones listed above, 6 are more than a dollar below that and 5 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 Culver City, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $4.20. That is $0.05 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.