Dirt Cheap Dinners in Seattle - Under $5

Tacos Guaymas - 2 tacos for $4.50

Guaymas tacos are cheap, delicious, and remarkably overstuffed – especially the veggie. At $2.25 each for veggie, chicken, beef, or pork al pastor, it’s a serious recession-busting dinner, and sometimes I can’t even finish two tacos.

They also have a bitchin’ salsa bar with avocado sauce – no need to pay extra for guacamole!

Blue Water Taco Grill - shmancy tacos for $3.70

All tacos range from $2.65 – $3.70 each, even shrimp and calamari! They also have good size burritos and plates for slightly more, in the $6-8 range.

Dick's Drive In - $1.40 for a cheesburger

Dick’s is the absolute cheapest Americana you can find in Seattle. With $1.40 cheeseburgers, a $2.40 deluxe double, $1.40 fries and $1.90 milkshakes, there are many combinations of items that will fully feed you for under five bucks.

How you feel the next day…well, it’s up to you to reconcile that with your wallet.

Dick’s Drive-In website

Athina Grill - Soup & Pita for $3.99

Athina Grill serves three amazing soups with a hefty bowl size and 5-6 slices of fluffy, delicious homemade pita bread for $3.95.

The avgolemono is a zingy lemon chicken soup that is highly recommended for anyone fighting a cold. The lentil, loaded with fresh chopped garlic, is spicy, savory and filling. The tomato orzo is stuffed full of tiny, plump orzo pasta and the aforementioned garlic. All three are extremely tasty. Plus, it’s a local, family-owned business.

If you’re willing to shell out more than five bucks, you can get retsina, a traditional Greek wine made with pine resin that will get you… crunk, not to put too fine a point on it.

Pagliacci - Pizza, salad or pasta salad under $5

When I first arrived in Seattle from the east coast, someone told me that I could find east coast-level pizza at Pagliacci’s. They were wrong.

But it’s pretty good pizza for Seattle and there’s a decent variety – and you can usually get two slices for five dollars or less.

Also available for less than five bucks: one of their numerous, daily rotating pasta salads for 3.99 or 4.99 (the one with grapes and gorgonzola is pretty great) and a small Pagliaccio salad.

The Pagliaccio salad is totally substantive even at the small size – it’s tons of romaine lettuce topped chopped red onions and red peppers, garbanzo beans, shredded cheese and cubed salami – hitting all the food groups and servings of vegetables for $3.99.

Pagliacci Website

Than Bros. - $4.99 pho

With multiple locations in Seattle, Than Bros is good bet for that most excellent of Vietnamese noodle soups – pho. You can get a “small” bowl of pho, which is roughly the size of my head, for $4.95. Both meat and veggie-friendly options are available.

They also give you a free yummy cream puff. I know, pho and cream puffs? But it works.