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Austin has plenty of good food to go around, yet sometimes we want the best meal without spending too much. Instead of cooking from home, try these affordable restaurants around town.
Here are 21 Austin restaurants for the best cheap eats in town.
Kebabalicious, 1311 E. 7th St.
Big eats for a small price. Kebabalicious offers Turkish style wraps with all organic ingredients. Lamb and beef lovers, vegetarians and sauce fanatics can get their kick for under $10 by ordering a kebab, hummus and so much more.
You can find the Kebablicious menu here and order online here.
P. Terrys, multiple locations
The beloved Austin restaurant has more to offer than just local pride. What started as a burger stand on South Lamar and Barton Springs has ventured out to multiple locations around the greater Austin area still offering great burgers for low prices. With beef, chicken and vegetarian burgers, P. Terrys is the spot to hit for a cheap and quick pick me up.
You can find the P. Terry's menu here and order online here.
Tyson's Tacos, 4905 Airport Blvd.
Austinites know finding the perfect taco stand is a big deal in a town full of options. Tyson's Tacos offers unique tacos for a cheap and delicious meal. For under $10, you can explore the menu and find any taco calling your name and fuel your taco dreams.
You can find the Tyson's Tacos menu here and order online here.
Teji's Indian Restaurant, multiple locations
Spice up your evening meal by trying affordable indian cuisine from Teji's Indian Restaurant. With different locations and menus around town, the restaurants offer single entrees for $10.99 and appetizers, drinks, desserts and more all under $10.
You can find the Tej's Indian Restaurant menu here and order online here.
Thundercloud subs, multiple locations
Another Austin classic, Thundercloud Subs offers fresh subs and salads for a quick, cheap and refreshing meal for any time of day. With signature subs, salads, sides, and more, you can find yourself indulging in a full meal for less than $10.
You can find the Thundercloud Subs menu here and order online here.
Veracruz All Natural, multiple locations
For an authentic, homemade Mexican food experience, Veracruz All Natural is the place to hit. The local taco stand has taken Austin by storm with fresh ingredients and delicious tacos, salsas and juices. Make everyday taco Tuesday for less than $10 at this Austin joint.
You can find the Veracruz All Natural menu and order online here.
Snarf's sandwiches, multiple locations
What started in Boulder, Colorado as a sandwich shack is now bringing Austin fresh and delicious oven toasted sandwiches for an affordable price. The family-owned business offers made-to-order sandwiches, salads, soups and so much more, all under $10.
You can find the Snarf's Sandwiches menu here and order online here
Gourdough’s Big Fat Donuts, 1503 S. 1st St.
Gordough's Big Fat Donuts offers an incredibly unique Austin menu of donuts for anyone looking to give into their sweet cravings. With different toppings and types of donuts, the food truck is your place to hit if you're looking for a delicious sweet snack under $10. You can also find donut sandwiches, burgers and so much more at Gourdough's Public House at 2700 S. Lamar Blvd.
You can find the Gourdough's menu here and order online through a third-party app such as Grubhub and Doordash.
Amy’s Ice Cream, multiple locations
Although not technically a restaurant, Amy's Ice Cream is an Austin favorite offering a delicious treat for all ice cream lovers. With over 350 flavors in rotation, the ice cream shop has all the flavors you can imagine for under $10, plus milkshakes, ice cream cakes and more.
You can find Amy's Ice Cream menu here and order online here.
Koriente, 621 E. 7th St.
Koriente offers healthy Asian inspired dishes at a low cost for a healthy, quick meal. With fresh ingredients, seafood, meat vegan and gluten-free options, this restaurant is the perfect takeout option under $10.
You can find the Koriente menu here.
Cenote, multiple locations
Not sure what you want to eat? Cenote has it all. From breakfast tacos and coffee to salads, sandwiches, burgers and drinks, the restaurant offers a great deal and even better food for a reasonable price.
You can find the Cenote menu and order online here.
East Side King, multiple locations
Japanese street food From Chefs Paul Qui and Moto Utsunomiya created East Side King during their time at beloved Uchi and Uchiko to create affordable Japanese street food for Austinites. The menu offers Asian inspired classics at an affordable cost and delicious meals for all food lovers.
You can find the menu and order online here.
Chi’lantro, multiple locations
With so many Asian inspired restaurants in Austin, it's hard to find our favorite. Chi'lantro, home of the Kimchi fries, is definitely at the top of the list. With rice, salads, noodles and rice bowls, wraps and fries for under $10, who can avoid the delicious temptation of this Korean barbecue inspired restaurant?
You can find the Chi'lantro menu and order online here
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El Primo, 2011 S. 1st St.
Mexican food trucks aren't hard to find in Austin but if you haven't tried El Primo yet, add it to your list of places to try. With options of tacos, burritos and tortas for breakfast, lunch and dinner, El Primo offers a delicious meal for under $10.
Xian Sushi and Noodle, multiple locations
Lovers of food and cheap eats can appreciate Xian Sushi and Noodle for traditional, fresh Japanese and Chinese cuisine. With hand-pulled noodles, a long list of sushi rolls and so much more for under $10, this restaurant has it all for all foodies.
You can find the Xian Sushi and Noodle menu and order online here.
Biscuits + Groovy, multiple locations
Breakfast lovers can get their morning fix at Biscuits + Groovy for all under $10. With freshly baked buttermilk biscuits and different types of toppings, no morning will feel the same without these biscuit sandwiches.
You can find the biscuits + Groovy menu here and order online here.
Dirty Martin's Place, 2808 Guadalupe St.
These award winning burgers from Dirty Martin's Place have been giving Austinites their burger fix since 1926. The burger joint has extremely affordable options and shouldn't be mistaken for anything but delicious.
You can find the Dirty Martin's Place menu here and order online here.
Bao’d Up, multiple locations
Bao'd Up offers authentic Chinese cuisine with a Texas twist for an ultimate food experience unlike any other. Offering signature baozi, oodles, boba tea and more, the steamed buns are a delicious pick me up for under $10.
You can find the Bao'd Up menu here and order online through their app here.
Delray Cafe, 1133 E. 11th St.
This Austin food truck offers Detroit style coneys, sliders, wings and more that fit the $10 budget. From original style coney dogs to Texas-inspired ones, Delray Cafe has all types of delicious hot dogs for an affordable price located outside of Nickel City.
You can find the Delray Cafe menu here.
Jewboy Burgers, 511 Airport Blvd.
Jewboy Burgers offers Austinites burgers unlike any other. With a mixture of U.S, Mexico and Jewish inspired dishes, the killer menu options from Jewboy Burgers features burgers, burritos and latkes for a unique food experience.
You can find the Jewboy Burgers menu here and order online here.
La Tunita 512, 2400 Burleson Road
If you've never tried birria tacos, La Tunita 512 is the place to hit. With fried tortillas and covered in a traditional slow cooked Mexican beef stew, birria tacos have taken the food world by storm. The food truck offers birria and queso tacos, mulitas, consome and birria tortas.
You can find more information on the La Tunita 512 menu on their Facebook or Instagram and order online here.
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Popular
As summer temperatures continue to increase, so does Austin's "Party Island"—a hundreds-strong army of kayakers and paddle boarders who gather each weekend in the middle of Lady Bird Lake.
Born from the pandemic, the swarm of paddleboarding partiers has continued to grow each summer and can be seen from the nearby Lamar Boulevard Bridge. And while "Party Island" certainly lives up to one half of its name, it's not actually an island at all: instead, it's located at a shallow sandbar near Lou Neff Point.
With beers, burgers from portable grills and even DJ turntables in hand, more friends and strangers continue to beat the heat in new ways at the distinct Austin hangout.
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- Photo story: Austin's 'Party Island' on Lady Bird Lake - austonia ›
(Pexels)
If you are a committed, grunge-wearing resident of the Pacific Northwest, it is easy–almost automatic–to look at Texas as an extraordinarily dry, hot and culturally oppressive place that is better to avoid, especially in the summer. Our two granddaughters live with their parents in Portland.
Recently we decided to take the older girl, who is 15, to Dallas. Setting aside the summer heat, a Portlander can adjust to the vibes of Austin without effort. So let’s take Texas with all of its excesses straight up. Dallas, here we come.
Our 15-year-old granddaughter and her sister, 12, have spent summer weeks with us, usually separately so that we could better get to know each individually. In visits focused on Austin and Port Aransas, the girls seemed to be developing an affection for Texas.
Houston and Dallas are two great American cities, the 4th and 9th largest, each loaded with cultural treasures, each standing in glittering and starchy contrast to Austin’s more louche, T-shirts and shorts ways.
Three hours up I-35, Dallas loomed before us as a set of gray skyscrapers in a filmy haze, accessed only through a concrete mixmaster of freeways, ramps and exits. I drove with false confidence. Be calm, I said to myself, it will all end in 10 minutes under the hotel entrance canopy. And it did.
The pool at the Crescent Court Hotel in Dallas. (Crescent Court Hotel)
We stayed three nights at the Crescent Court Hotel ($622 a night for two queens), a high-end hotel in Uptown, patronized by women in white blazers, business people in suits, and tall, lean professional athletes, their shiny Escalades and Corvettes darting in and out, and other celebrities like Bill Barr, the former attorney general who shoe-horned his ample self into a Toyota.
Each morning as I walked to Whole Foods for a cappuccino, a fellow identified by a bellman as Billy the Oilman arrived in his Rolls Royce Phantom. Where does he park? “Wherever he wants to. He likes the Starbucks here.”
We garaged our more modest set of wheels for the visit. We were chauffeured for tips by Matt Cooney and Alfonza “The Rev” Scott in the hotel’s black Audi sedan. They drove us to museums, restaurants and past the enclaves of the rich and famous. In Highland Park, The Rev pointed out the homes of the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman along with the family compound of the Hunts, oil and gas tycoons.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s “Cartier and Islam” exhibit (until Sept. 18) attracted an older crowd; the nearby Perot Museum of Nature and Science was a powerful whirlpool of kids’ groups ricocheting from the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the oil fracking exhibit. Watch your shins.
A Geogia O'Keeffe oil painting called "Ranchos Church, New Mexico" at the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art. (Rich Oppel)
For us, the best museum was the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, a 50-minute, madcap drive away via a 75 mph toll lane along I-30. Don’t try it during rush hour. The Carter has an exquisite collection of Remington paintings and sculptures and an excellent array of 19th and 20th-century paintings as well. Pick one museum? The Amon Carter. Peaceful, beautiful, uncrowded, free admission and small enough to manage in two hours.
The Fort Worth Stockyards, a place of history (with a dab of schmaltz), fun and good shopping, filled one of our mornings. The 98 acres brand the city as Cowboy Town, with a rodeo and a twice-daily (11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.) cattle drive. We shopped for boots, drank coffee and watched the “herd” of 18 longhorns. So languid was their progress that if this were a real market drive the beef would have been very tough and leathery before it hit the steakhouse dinner plate.
The cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Rich Oppel)
But we could identify: the temperature was 97. “I saw a dog chasing a cat today,” said the emcee, deploying a very old joke. “It was so hot that both were walking.”
With limited time, we chose three very different restaurants:
- Nobu, in the Crescent Court Hotel; Jia, a modern Chinese restaurant in Highland Park; and Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth. Nobu’s exotic Japanese menu set us back $480, with tip, for four (we had a guest), but it was worth it.
- Jia was an ordinary suburban strip mall restaurant, but with good food and a reasonable tab of $110 for four.
- Joe T.’s is an 85-year-old Fort Worth institution (think Matt’s El Rancho but larger), a fine Mexican restaurant where a meal with two drinks was $115.
Sushi at high-end restaurant Nobu. (Crescent Hotel)
It was all a splurge for a grandchild’s visit. Now we will get back to our ordinary road trips of Hampton Inns, where a room rate is closer to the Crescent Court’s overnight parking rate of $52. And to corner cafes in small towns.
Did Dallas change our 15-year-old’s view of Texas? “Yes. I think it’s a lot cooler than I did. The fashion, the food.” So, not only Austin is cool. Take Texas as a whole. It’s a big, complex, diverse and wonderful state.