Fries in San Francisco

12 restaurants in San Francisco list fries on their menus. The cheapest is Mr Pizza Man at $5.00. The typical price across town is $7.00, and the dearest we found is $9.00 at SF Hole In The Wall Pizza, so the two ends of the list are $4.00 apart, which is 80% more for the same dish. Of the 12 kitchens listed, 3 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 7 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 $6.95 at the median, so San Francisco is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 8 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 Modesto, about 80 mi away, where the best price is $6.49.

Where is the cheapest fries in San Francisco? Mr Pizza Man, at $5.00 on 2680 22nd St. The same dish reaches $9.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $4.00.

What should fries cost here? About $7.00 is the typical price across the 12 kitchens in San Francisco that list it. Of the ones listed above, 3 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 Modesto, about 80 mi away, where the best price is $6.49. That is $1.49 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.