Shrimp in San Diego

8 restaurants in San Diego list shrimp on their menus. The cheapest is Mama Antonia’s Restaurant at $6.75. The typical price across town is $15.00, and the dearest we found is $30.00 at Las Hadas Bar & Grill, so the two ends of the list are $23.25 apart, which is 344% more for the same dish. Of the 8 kitchens listed, 3 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 3 charge more than a dollar over.

We track shrimp in 84 other areas and compare them all on shrimp across United States. The typical price there runs $15.95 at the median, so San Diego is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 44 of the 84. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Butterfly Belly Asian Cuisine in Portland, OR, and the highest best price is $19.50 in Revere, MA. The nearest area with it is National City, about 14 mi away, where the best price is $8.00.

Where is the cheapest shrimp in San Diego? Mama Antonia’s Restaurant, at $6.75 on 2502 San Diego Avenue. The same dish reaches $30.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $23.25.

What should shrimp cost here? About $15.00 is the typical price across the 8 kitchens in San Diego that list it. Of the ones listed above, 3 are more than a dollar below that and 3 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 National City, about 14 mi away, where the best price is $8.00. That is $1.25 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.