Grilled Cheese in Madison

3 restaurants in Madison list grilled cheese on their menus. The cheapest is Monty's Blue Plate Diner at $6.49. The typical price across town is $9.00, and the dearest we found is $15.00 at The Coopers Tavern, so the two ends of the list are $8.51 apart, which is 131% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges 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 grilled cheese in 2 other areas and compare them all on grilled cheese across United States. The typical price there runs $8.99 at the median, so Madison is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 0 of the 2. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.75 at Waveland Cafe in Des Moines, IA, and the highest best price is $5.50 in Saint Louis, MO. The nearest area with it is Des Moines, about 238 mi away, where the best price is $4.75.

Where is the cheapest grilled cheese in Madison? Monty's Blue Plate Diner, at $6.49 on 2089 Atwood Avenue. The same dish reaches $15.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $8.51.

What should grilled cheese cost here? About $9.00 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 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 Des Moines, about 238 mi away, where the best price is $4.75. That is $1.74 less than the best here, though whether that is worth the journey is your call.

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.