Garlic Bread in San Diego

26 restaurants in San Diego list garlic bread on their menus. The cheapest is Lupi Italian Restaurant at $4.00. The typical price across town is $6.95, and the dearest we found is $14.95 at Pizza e Birra San Diego, so the two ends of the list are $10.95 apart, which is 274% more for the same dish. Of the 26 kitchens listed, 7 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 11 sit within a dollar of it and 8 charge more than a dollar over.

We track garlic bread in 315 other areas and compare them all on garlic bread across United States. The typical price there runs $6.25 at the median, so San Diego is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 102 of the 315. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Fortunato Brothers Pizza in Baltimore, MD, and the highest best price is $7.99 in Manchester, NH. The nearest area with it is La Mesa, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $4.50.

Where is the cheapest garlic bread in San Diego? Lupi Italian Restaurant, at $4.00 on 5518 La Jolla Blvd. The same dish reaches $14.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $10.95.

What should garlic bread cost here? About $6.95 is the typical price across the 26 kitchens in San Diego that list it. Of the ones listed above, 7 are more than a dollar below that and 8 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 La Mesa, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $4.50. That is $0.50 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.