Poutine in Nanaimo

3 restaurants in Nanaimo list poutine on their menus. The cheapest is Joe Burger at $10.00. The typical price across town is $13.49, and the dearest we found is $13.95 at Maggie's Seafood Market | Fish & Chips Eatery, so the two ends of the list are $3.95 apart, which is 40% 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 poutine in 40 other areas and compare them all on poutine across Canada. The typical price there runs $10.99 at the median, so Nanaimo is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 5 of the 40. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Cramdon's Tap & Eatery in Windsor, ON, and the highest best price is $12.00 in Banff, AB. The nearest area with it is Vancouver, about 62 km away, where the best price is $7.25.

Where is the cheapest poutine in Nanaimo? Joe Burger, at $10.00 on 3200 Island Hwy N. The same dish reaches $13.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $3.95.

What should poutine cost here? About $13.49 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Nanaimo 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 Vancouver, about 62 km away, where the best price is $7.25. That is $2.75 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.