Fried Chicken Sandwich in San Francisco

7 restaurants in San Francisco list fried chicken sandwich on their menus. The cheapest is Louie's Original at $13.00. The typical price across town is $21.00, and the dearest we found is $26.00 at Arquet Restaurant, so the two ends of the list are $13.00 apart, which is 100% more for the same dish. Of the 7 kitchens listed, 4 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track fried chicken sandwich in 9 other areas and compare them all on fried chicken sandwich across United States. The typical price there runs $17.00 at the median, so San Francisco is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 1 of the 9. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $8.99 at Sauce on Bowdoin in Boston, MA, and the highest best price is $16.50 in Houston, TX. The nearest area with it is Portland, about 537 mi away, where the best price is $13.00.

Where is the cheapest fried chicken sandwich in San Francisco? Louie's Original, at $13.00 on 1685 Mariposa St. The same dish reaches $26.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $13.00.

What should fried chicken sandwich cost here? About $21.00 is the typical price across the 7 kitchens in San Francisco that list it. Of the ones listed above, 4 are 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 Portland, about 537 mi away, where the best price is $13.00. 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.