We all love great food but hate the sticker shock.
The pain has gotten worse, thanks to skyrocketing food prices--up 40% in the last year, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Restaurants absorb those hikes as best they can, but mainly they pass them on to their customers and hope for the best.
So where to find tasty fare at (relatively) tender prices?
No one carves up the $600 billion restaurant industry like the food fanatics at Zagat, publisher of those ubiquitous rectangular restaurant guides. Zagat surveys hundreds of thousands of customers and assembles ratings--from 1 to 30--on food quality, décor and service, as well as the estimated cost of a dinner for one person, including one drink and tip. Zagat has compiled data on 18 metro areas throughout the United States.
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To find the most delicious, affordable vittles across the nation, we created our own rating system based on Zagat's research. (You could do this on your own but we saved you the time.) Using Zagat's easy-to-use online database, we divided each restaurant's food score by its average cost, and ranked the resulting ratios top to bottom.
We defined restaurant as a full-service, indoor, sit-down establishment where orders are taken and meals are served to customers by wait staff. This meant culling critically acclaimed food-truck services, like Marination Mobile in Seattle, which serves up scrumptious Hawaiian-Korean fusion fare.
Our list of 20 restaurants includes those with food scores no lower than 25 and an average price per head no higher than $27. Cuisines range from American to Peruvian and Soul Food to Mexican.
Here, then, are the best eats at the lowest prices:
1. Las Cuatro Milpas
Location: San Diego, Calif.
Food Type: Mexican
Owners Tip: “Make everything fresh.” – Margarita Hernandez part owner and chef
Fun Fact: Each tortilla is handmade and cooked in house.
2. Zeke’s Fish and Chips
Location: Fort Worth
Food Type: Seafood
Owners Tip: “Be patient and give [your restaurant] a chance to get going. It is harder now to run a restaurant than it was forty years ago, so be prepared to work seven days a week.” – Mark Lidell, owner
Fun Fact: Zeke’s has been operating for 40 years.
3. Cavalli Pizzeria
Location: Irving and McKinney
Food Type: Italian/ Pizza
Owners Tip: “Love what you do--love every part of it and be excited about it.”- Palo Cavalli, owner and chef
Fun Fact: Palo Cavalli and his sister (and co-owner) TK Cavalli were born in the United States but grew up in Italy.
4. Pho Xe Tang
Location: Chicago
Food Type: Vietnamese
Fun Fact: The number 19 is a sandwich including sausage made of pork innards and pigs blood.
5. Cheese Board Collective
Location: San Francisco
Food Type: Pizza
Fun Fact: The original owners sold the company to their employees, but stayed on as managers.
6. Busy Bee Café
Location: Atlanta
Food Type: Soul Food
Fun Fact: The restaurant could not be reached for comment.
7. Pho 14
Location: Washington D.C.
Food Type: Vietnamese
Fun Fact: This place whips up mean smoothies, including the jackfruit and durian variety.
8. The Joint
Location: New Orleans
Food Type: Barbeque
Owners Tip: “Take every cautionary tale with a grain of salt. It’s too easy to be discouraged and to second guess yourself.” – Peter Breen, co-owner and head chef
Fun Fact: Guy Fieri of the Food Network declared that The Joint is home to “Killer Barbeque.”
9. Over Easy Café
Location: Chicago
Food Type: American
Owners Tip: “Hands on experience is necessary. You can’t do what you don’t know.” – Jonathan Cignarale, owner and chef
Fun Fact: Three months after the restaurant opened, it burned to the ground.
10. Mo Chica
Location: Los Angeles
Food Type: Peruvian
Owners Tip: “You must have experience in the business, or at the very least know someone with experience in the business.” – Ricardo Zarate, Owner and Executive Chef
Fun Fact: Zarate, one of 13 children, was named the best new chef in 2011 by Food and Wine magazine.
11. Kabobeesh
Location: Philadelphia
Food Type: Middle Eastern
12. Green Eggs Café
Location: Philadelphia
Food Type: American (Brunch)
Fun Fact: Green Eggs Café truly is Green. They grow their own food, recycle, and compost much of their waste.
13. Nam Phoung
Location: Philadelphia
Food Type: Vietnamese
14. Antique Thai Cuisine
Location: San Diego
Food Type: Thai
15. Bud’s Louisiana Café
Location: San Diego
Food Type: American
16. Green Leaf
Location: Seattle
Food Type: Vietnamese
Fun Fact: Deserts include Che Thai, a dish made with water chestnut, jello, half and half, longen, and jack-fruit
17. Four Rivers
Location: Philadelphia
Food Type: Chinese
Fun Fact: One of their specialty dishes is pork kidney with dry rubbed spices.
18. Royal China Restaurant
Location: Dallas
Food Type: Chinese
19. Casamento’s
Location: New Orleans
Food Type: Seafood/Italian
Fun Fact: The restaurant goes on "summer vacation." It will reopen on September 13.
2o. Shanti: Taste of India
Location: Dorchester, MA
Food Type: Indian
Fun Fact: The idea for began when a successful real estate developer named Solmon Chowdhury decided he was tired of driving into Boston to get Indian food.
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