Spaghetti in Palatine

4 restaurants in Palatine list spaghetti on their menus. The cheapest is Pedro's Pizza at $8.75. The typical price across town is $12.90, and the dearest we found is $15.25 at Napoli Pizza, so the two ends of the list are $6.50 apart, which is 74% more for the same dish. Of the 4 kitchens listed, 2 charge 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 spaghetti in 50 other areas and compare them all on spaghetti across United States. The typical price there runs $12.75 at the median, so Palatine is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 24 of the 50. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.90 at Pavone's Pizza in Syracuse, NY, and the highest best price is $15.99 in Jacksonville, FL. The nearest area with it is Buffalo Grove, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $8.99.

Where is the cheapest spaghetti in Palatine? Pedro's Pizza, at $8.75 on 1513 N Rand Rd. The same dish reaches $15.25 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $6.50.

What should spaghetti cost here? About $12.90 is the typical price across the 4 kitchens in Palatine 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 Buffalo Grove, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $8.99. That is $0.24 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.