French Fries in Ottawa

8 restaurants in Ottawa list french fries on their menus. The cheapest is Chinhon Restaurant at $4.25. The typical price across town is $6.00, and the dearest we found is $8.95 at Hog's Back Restaurant, so the two ends of the list are $4.70 apart, which is 111% more for the same dish. Of the 8 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 5 sit within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track french fries in 13 other areas and compare them all on french fries across Canada. The typical price there runs $6.99 at the median, so Ottawa is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 11 of the 13. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at O'Sullivan's in Calgary, AB, and the highest best price is $6.95 in Regina, SK. The nearest area with it is Belleville, about 186 km away, where the best price is $4.99.

Where is the cheapest french fries in Ottawa? Chinhon Restaurant, at $4.25 on 6179 Perth Street. The same dish reaches $8.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.70.

What should french fries cost here? About $6.00 is the typical price across the 8 kitchens in Ottawa that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are 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 Belleville, about 186 km away, where the best price is $4.99. That is $0.74 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.