Fries in San Diego

10 restaurants in San Diego list fries on their menus. The cheapest is Park Pizza at $4.99. The typical price across town is $6.95, and the dearest we found is $9.50 at The Local Pacific Beach, so the two ends of the list are $4.51 apart, which is 90% more for the same dish. Of the 10 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 6 sit within a dollar of it and 2 charge more than a dollar over.

We track fries in 21 other areas and compare them all on fries across United States. The typical price there runs $7.00 at the median, so San Diego is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 11 of the 21. 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 Scottsdale, about 312 mi away, where the best price is $4.99.

Where is the cheapest fries in San Diego? Park Pizza, at $4.99 on 565 Park Blvd. The same dish reaches $9.50 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.51.

What should fries cost here? About $6.95 is the typical price across the 10 kitchens in San Diego that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are more than a dollar below that and 2 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 Scottsdale, about 312 mi away, where the best price is $4.99. That is the same as 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.