Salad in Oakland

24 restaurants in Oakland list salad on their menus. The cheapest is City Center Pizzeria at $4.99, listed as TOSSED GREEN SALAD. The typical price across town is $9.75, and the dearest we found is $15.00 at Z Cafe and Bar, so the two ends of the list are $10.01 apart, which is 201% more for the same dish. Of the 24 kitchens listed, 8 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 8 sit within a dollar of it and 8 charge more than a dollar over.

We track salad in 1103 other areas and compare them all on salad across United States. The typical price there runs $9.50 at the median, so Oakland is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 530 of the 1103. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Kennedy Pizza & Fried Chicken in Newark, NJ, and the highest best price is $13.95 in Mount Sinai, NY. The nearest area with it is Alameda, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $6.75.

Where is the cheapest salad in Oakland? City Center Pizzeria, at $4.99 on 500 12Th St. The same dish reaches $15.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $10.01.

What should salad cost here? About $9.75 is the typical price across the 24 kitchens in Oakland that list it. Of the ones listed above, 8 are more than a dollar below that and 8 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 Alameda, about 3 mi away, where the best price is $6.75. That is $1.76 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.