New York City: Dining Out Budget?
January 4, 2010 by
Filed under new york dining
A party of 5 adults and 1 child will be in New York City from Saturday Night to Saturday Morning. How much should I budget for meals? I plan to buy some breakfast groceries to keep costs down. We definitely want to try out most of the New York must try foods. For lunches, we want to go cheap and for dinners go no more than moderate. What do you think?
Well it depends on where you are in the city as to how expensive things are but even moderate can run $15-30 per person per day. Are you going to be out all day doing tourist stuff or working at all? Do you have any facilities where you are staying like a mini bar that you can use for your own stuff or a microwave? Do you all have similar tastes in food because buying a large size of some things will be cheaper than individual sizes, like a pizza or beverages. You can get street/quick food lunches or things from a grocery store like yogurt, fruit, crackers, etc. For dinner consider going to restaurants that serve family style like dim-sum or Italian food. Consider getting takeout one night which can be cheaper than eating in a restaurant, take it to a park and make a picnic of it if you don’t have room in your hotel. We have every kind of cuisine here so be adventurous and try new things like Burmese or Ethiopian food. If you save or eat cheaply most days you can then splurge one night and have a great meal at a nice restaurant of which there are hundreds as well. Just avoid all national chains and tourist/theme places, they are over-priced and the food isn’t good.
Look on http://www.menupages.com to get an idea of prices. I spent about $10 a day on food, but I also lived on pizza, bagels, and coffee. Then again, I’m a college student
You’ll probably end up spending 15-25 per person. You can get huge slices of pizza for $2-3 dollars at places like Ray’s and La Famiglia. Papaya Dog also has great deals on yummy hot dogs. A lot of restaurants have lunch specials in the $4-6 range.