Foodie Pundit

The casual plate now runs $14.83, and the map is not even close

The Foodie Index for November 2026: 1,189 observed price records, 156 charted cities, and a $22.26 spread between the cheapest and priciest plate.

By Foodie Pundit Newsroom - Published - Updated - Section: Food Prices

Key points

  • National casual plate: $14.83 from 1,189 observed price records.
  • Dining affordability: 7.87 percent of monthly median household income for a daily fast casual meal.
  • City spread: $4.99 to $27.25 across 156 charted cities.
  • Eating out prices are moving 3.46 percent over twelve months per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Foodie Index for November 2026 puts the national casual restaurant plate at $14.83. That figure is not a survey and not an estimate. It is the middle of the menu prices Foodie Pundit has read at real venues, 1,189 price records deep, refreshed as new menus land in the vault. When a menu changes, the index moves. When it does not, the index sits still.

Eight of the fourteen index families carry a national reading right now. The rest stay blank on purpose, because the evidence behind them is not thick enough to put a number in front of a reader. A blank is an honest answer. A guess is not. The national board

- Restaurant Price Index: $14.83. Observed menu prices, with grocery staples from published government averages

- Dining Affordability Index: 7.87 percent. Casual meal cost against national median household income (Census ACS)

- Family Meal Index: $92.00. Observed menu prices, with grocery staples from published government averages

- $20 Meal Index: $17.00. Observed menu prices, with grocery staples from published government averages

- Real Meal Cost Index: $27.60. Observed menu prices, with grocery staples from published government averages

- Menu Inflation Index: 3.46 percent. Eating out prices, twelve month change, Bureau of Labor Statistics

- Dining Economics Index: 44.3. Composite of restaurant price and affordability components Pay against plate

The Dining Affordability Index reads 7.87 percent. Read it plainly: a household earning the national median takes that share of a month of income to buy a fast casual meal with a drink thirty times, once a day for a month. Casual meal cost against national median household income (Census ACS). The income figure comes from the Census American Community Survey, the meal figure from menus we have actually read.

Two numbers move this index and only two. Menu prices, which we observe, and household income, which the government publishes. Neither one is modeled. That is why the reading can look unkind: nobody has smoothed it. The plates people recognize

The Family Meal Index sits at $92.00, which is four dinner entrees and four soft drinks at observed prices. No appetizers, no dessert, no service charge, no delivery fee. It is the floor of a table of four, and it is the number most households recognize from their own receipt.

The $20 Meal Index reads $17.00. A fast casual entree with a drink still clears a twenty with $3.00 left over. That gap is the whole argument about value in casual dining, expressed as one subtraction.

The Real Meal Cost Index lands at $27.60, an entree and a drink carried out to the total a foodie actually settles, tax and the standard service add on included at observed rates. The distance between the menu number and the settled number is the part of the bill people describe as a surprise. What the government sees moving

The Menu Inflation Index tracks the published Bureau of Labor Statistics series for eating out, currently 3.46 percent over twelve months.

We do not restate that series in our own words and we do not adjust it. It is the government's read on the direction of prices, and it sits beside our own read on the level of prices. Direction from the record, level from the menu. The city spread

Across 156 charted cities the casual plate runs from $4.99 to $27.25, a spread of $22.26. National averages hide that entirely, which is why the index is built city first and summed up second.

- Frankfort: casual plate $4.99, affordability 4.29 percent, median household income $54438.

- Fort Myers: casual plate $5.25, median household income $62160.

- Kissimmee: casual plate $8.31, median household income $51277.

- Fond du Lac: casual plate $8.59, affordability 6.75 percent, median household income $61620.

- Orlando: casual plate $9.23, median household income $69268.

- Charleston: casual plate $9.25, affordability 5.79 percent, median household income $64512.

- Winter Park: casual plate $9.35, median household income $98076.

- Lake Mary: casual plate $9.35, median household income $116944.

- Sanford: casual plate $9.35, median household income $62877.

- Apopka: casual plate $9.35, median household income $95703.

- Rockville: casual plate $9.53, affordability 3.09 percent, median household income $122384.

- Huntington: casual plate $9.70, affordability 8.39 percent, median household income $43146.

- Arlington: casual plate $10.02, affordability 3.34 percent, median household income $140160.

- Duluth: casual plate $10.12, affordability 7.37 percent, median household income $66263.

- Falls Church: casual plate $10.47, affordability 3.06 percent, median household income $154734.

- Springfield: casual plate $10.74, affordability 3.81 percent, median household income $123691.

- Morgantown: casual plate $10.76, affordability 9.62 percent, median household income $42245.

- Renton: casual plate $10.80, affordability 4.84 percent, median household income $96626.

- Madison: casual plate $10.86, affordability 5.54 percent, median household income $76983.

- Vienna: casual plate $10.88, affordability 2.24 percent, median household income $223571.

- West Des Moines: casual plate $27.25, median household income $84925.

- Des Moines: casual plate $27.10, affordability 9.99 percent, median household income $63966.

- Long Beach: casual plate $26.33, median household income $83969.

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