Baked Ziti in Sparta

4 restaurants in Sparta list baked ziti on their menus. The cheapest is Uncle Sal's Pizza II at $9.95, listed as Baked Ziti Lunch. The typical price across town is $18.00, and the dearest we found is $18.95 at Angeloni's on Lake Mohawk, so the two ends of the list are $9.00 apart, which is 90% more for the same dish. Of the 4 kitchens listed, 2 charge more than a dollar under the typical price, 2 sit within a dollar of it and 0 charge more than a dollar over.

We track baked ziti in 459 other areas and compare them all on baked ziti across United States. The typical price there runs $15.99 at the median, so Sparta is dearer than most of them, with a lower typical price than 68 of the 459. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $5.10 at Pavone's Pizza in Syracuse, NY, and the highest best price is $21.00 in Stoneham, MA. The nearest area with it is Newton, about 6 mi away, where the best price is $10.00.

Where is the cheapest baked ziti in Sparta? Uncle Sal's Pizza II, at $9.95 on 147 Woodport Rd. The same dish reaches $18.95 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $9.00.

What should baked ziti cost here? About $18.00 is the typical price across the 4 kitchens in Sparta that list it. Of the ones listed above, 2 are more than a dollar below that and 0 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 Newton, about 6 mi away, where the best price is $10.00. That is $0.05 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.