Salad in Santa Monica

18 restaurants in Santa Monica list salad on their menus. The cheapest is Stefano's Pizzeria at $5.95, listed as House Salad. The typical price across town is $13.00, and the dearest we found is $29.00 at Citrin, so the two ends of the list are $23.05 apart, which is 387% more for the same dish. Of the 18 kitchens listed, 5 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 8 sit within a dollar of it and 5 charge more than a dollar over.

We track salad in 1106 other areas and compare them all on salad across United States. The typical price there runs $9.50 at the median, so Santa Monica is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 33 of the 1106. 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 Marina del Rey, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $9.58.

Where is the cheapest salad in Santa Monica? Stefano's Pizzeria, at $5.95 on 1310 3rd St. The same dish reaches $29.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $23.05.

What should salad cost here? About $13.00 is the typical price across the 18 kitchens in Santa Monica that list it. Of the ones listed above, 5 are more than a dollar below that and 5 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 Marina del Rey, about 4 mi away, where the best price is $9.58. That is $3.63 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.