Fries in Saint Paul

3 restaurants in Saint Paul list fries on their menus. The cheapest is Shish at $5.95. The typical price across town is $7.00, and the dearest we found is $8.99 at Bella Ciao Pasta and Bar Ristorante, so the two ends of the list are $3.04 apart, which is 51% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges 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 fries in 23 other areas and compare them all on fries across United States. The typical price there runs $6.49 at the median, so Saint Paul is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 8 of the 23. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Mildred's Big City Food in Gainesville, FL, and the highest best price is $6.99 in Morgantown, WV. The nearest area with it is Grand Rapids, about 398 mi away, where the best price is $4.00.

Where is the cheapest fries in Saint Paul? Shish, at $5.95 on 1668 Grand Avenue. The same dish reaches $8.99 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $3.04.

What should fries cost here? About $7.00 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Saint Paul that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is 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 Grand Rapids, about 398 mi away, where the best price is $4.00. That is $1.95 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.