Spaghetti in San Mateo

3 restaurants in San Mateo list spaghetti on their menus. The cheapest is Seniore's Pizza at $10.99. The typical price across town is $13.50, and the dearest we found is $15.99 at Nelci’s Kitchen (Formerly Mr Pizza Man San Mateo), so the two ends of the list are $5.00 apart, which is 45% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track spaghetti in 50 other areas and compare them all on spaghetti across United States. The typical price there runs $12.75 at the median, so San Mateo is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 17 of the 50. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.90 at Pavone's Pizza in Syracuse, NY, and the highest best price is $15.99 in Jacksonville, FL. The nearest area with it is San Francisco, about 16 mi away, where the best price is $6.00.

Where is the cheapest spaghetti in San Mateo? Seniore's Pizza, at $10.99 on 2210 S El Camino Real. The same dish reaches $15.99 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $5.00.

What should spaghetti cost here? About $13.50 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in San Mateo that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is 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 San Francisco, about 16 mi away, where the best price is $6.00. That is $4.99 less than the best here, though whether that is worth the journey is your call.

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.