Curly Fries in Philadelphia

61 restaurants in Philadelphia list curly fries on their menus, and the 40 cheapest are listed above. The cheapest is Papa Nick's Pizza at $4.00. The typical price across town is $6.80, and the dearest of the 40 listed is $7.20 at Brother's Pizza House 2, so the two ends of the list are $3.20 apart, which is 80% more for the same dish. Of the 40 kitchens listed, 15 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 25 sit within a dollar of it and 0 charge more than a dollar over.

We track curly fries in 49 other areas and compare them all on curly fries across United States. The typical price there runs $7.25 at the median, so Philadelphia is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 40 of the 49. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Paulie's Pizzeria in Schenectady, NY, and the highest best price is $7.20 in Wildwood, NJ. The nearest area with it is Pennsauken, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $5.95.

Where is the cheapest curly fries in Philadelphia? Papa Nick's Pizza, at $4.00 on 199 W Godfrey Ave. The same dish reaches $7.20 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $3.20.

What should curly fries cost here? About $6.80 is the typical price across the 61 kitchens in Philadelphia that list it. Of the ones listed above, 15 are 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 Pennsauken, about 5 mi away, where the best price is $5.95. That is $1.95 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.