New York Thanksgiving Dinner Costs $184.43, Up 15 Percent

The feast costs $184.43 this year. The New York Post's survey of holiday staples at grocery chains across the five boroughs put the price of a New York City Thanksgiving dinner 15 percent above last year, based on a year-over-year comparison of 18 items at six popular supermarkets. The total is the headline, and the turkey is the reason it's a headline.

The bird jumped 17 percent to $79.80 for a 20-pound Bell & Evans young turkey at Morton Williams. Nationally, the average turkey price is up 30 percent to $1.76 per pound, nearly 88 percent above the 94 cents per pound average in 2024, according to the Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau also reported that New York has the highest per-person Thanksgiving dinner cost in the country, 20 percent above the national average and 9 percent higher than in neighboring Northeastern states.

The steepest climb wasn't meat. Apple cider rose 75 percent, from $3.99 last year to $6.99. The Post tied the spike to a spring freeze that devastated the apple harvest in upstate and western New York, with growers suffering an estimated $30 million in losses so far in 2026, according to the governor's office. A cider line on a receipt is now carrying a failed harvest.

The rest of the basket moved the same way. Whole milk soared 50 percent, with a half-gallon of Farmland brand rising from $5.99 to $8.99. Libby's 100 percent pure pumpkin jumped 43 percent to $4.29. A nine-inch pumpkin pie at Whole Foods went from as low as $11.75 last year to $13.99, a 19 percent increase. Prices for at least eight products stayed flat year over year, and only one item fell: Idahoan boxed mashed potatoes, down 50 cents, a 10 percent decrease.

Shoppers in the aisles said what the numbers mean at home. "The meat is outrageous," said Carole Miller, 89, shopping at Morton Williams on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Angelo Hernandez, 66, a retired industrial mechanic shopping at the Union Square Whole Foods, said the milk, the bread, the fruits and the meats all went up, and that he and his wife are relying on their son to bring the bird. "My son gets the turkey. He works so he buys it," Hernandez said.

The survey's method is worth one plain sentence. It's a basket, not a census: 18 items, six chains, priced in the weeks before the holiday, and a different basket at a discount grocer would land lower. What the basket measures honestly is direction and spread. The items tied to this year's harvest and to the national bird supply rose hard, the shelf-stable middle of the table barely moved, and the total followed the two items a host can't substitute away.

Who should skip what, in plain terms: nobody's canceling the dinner over a survey. Miller laughed that she'll buy it regardless of the price. The trade-down the basket actually rewards is narrow. The cider and the brand-name bird carry the increases, the flat eight items don't punish anyone, and the one falling item is a boxed side. A New York host pays the $184.43, or pays less of it by choosing where the freeze and the bird don't set the price.