Onion Rings in Madison

3 restaurants in Madison list onion rings on their menus. The cheapest is Circle Pizza at $5.95. The typical price across town is $7.99, and the dearest we found is $8.95 at Red Tomato Pizzeria, so the two ends of the list are $3.00 apart, which is 50% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 0 charge more than a dollar over.

We track onion rings in 500 other areas and compare them all on onion rings across United States. The typical price there runs $7.95 at the median, so Madison is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 200 of the 500. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Lucky's Burger and Brews in Marietta, GA, and the highest best price is $11.00 in Bellevue, WA. The nearest area with it is Clinton, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $6.00.

Where is the cheapest onion rings in Madison? Circle Pizza, at $5.95 on 1278 Durham Rd. The same dish reaches $8.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $3.00.

What should onion rings cost here? About $7.99 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Madison that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is more than a dollar below that and 0 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 Clinton, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $6.00. 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.