Salad in Santa Cruz

5 restaurants in Santa Cruz list salad on their menus. The cheapest is Denny's at $9.89, listed as House Salad. The typical price across town is $15.95, and the dearest we found is $18.00 at Avanti, so the two ends of the list are $8.11 apart, which is 82% more for the same dish. Of the 5 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 2 charge more than a dollar over.

We track salad in 1103 other areas and compare them all on salad across United States. The typical price there runs $9.50 at the median, so Santa Cruz is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 5 of the 1103. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Kennedy Pizza & Fried Chicken in Newark, NJ, and the highest best price is $13.95 in Mount Sinai, NY. The nearest area with it is San Jose, about 24 mi away, where the best price is $5.61.

Where is the cheapest salad in Santa Cruz? Denny's, at $9.89 on 1515 Ocean Street. The same dish reaches $18.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $8.11.

What should salad cost here? About $15.95 is the typical price across the 5 kitchens in Santa Cruz that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 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 San Jose, about 24 mi away, where the best price is $5.61. That is $4.28 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.