Nachos in Madison

3 restaurants in Madison list nachos on their menus. The cheapest is Tex Tubb's Taco Palace at $6.50. The typical price across town is $11.99, and the dearest we found is $13.50 at Canteen, so the two ends of the list are $7.00 apart, which is 108% 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 nachos in 74 other areas and compare them all on nachos across United States. The typical price there runs $12.95 at the median, so Madison is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 51 of the 74. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $5.29 at Fat Cats in Westminster, CO, and the highest best price is $13.89 in Spokane, WA. The nearest area with it is Milwaukee, about 74 mi away, where the best price is $5.75.

Where is the cheapest nachos in Madison? Tex Tubb's Taco Palace, at $6.50 on 2009 Atwood Avenue. The same dish reaches $13.50 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $7.00.

What should nachos cost here? About $11.99 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 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 Milwaukee, about 74 mi away, where the best price is $5.75. That is $0.75 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.