Calamari in San Francisco

13 restaurants in San Francisco list calamari on their menus. The cheapest is Sabrosa Pizza at $7.75. The typical price across town is $17.00, and the dearest we found is $27.25 at Tadich Grill, so the two ends of the list are $19.50 apart, which is 252% more for the same dish. Of the 13 kitchens listed, 3 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 7 sit within a dollar of it and 3 charge more than a dollar over.

We track calamari in 493 other areas and compare them all on calamari across United States. The typical price there runs $15.42 at the median, so San Francisco is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 98 of the 493. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.50 at French Quarter Grille in Austin, TX, and the highest best price is $19.75 in Harwood Heights, IL. The nearest area with it is Sunnyvale, about 35 mi away, where the best price is $12.95.

Where is the cheapest calamari in San Francisco? Sabrosa Pizza, at $7.75 on 4124 Geary Blvd. The same dish reaches $27.25 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $19.50.

What should calamari cost here? About $17.00 is the typical price across the 13 kitchens in San Francisco 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 Sunnyvale, about 35 mi away, where the best price is $12.95. That is $5.20 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.