Originally Posted by
devil84
My better half and I enjoy annoying our grown children by finding the cheapest possible meals, which is pretty much what the OP was looking for. (We don't tell the kids when we go get really good food -- we might have to take them more often!)
We like the deals in the McDonald's app (which were better pre-pandemic), alternating between Quarter Pounders and Filet-o-fish. For the pandemic drive throughs, we get drinks at home, so two sandwiches and a large fries is usually a pretty good deal. Taco Bell is also good for cheap eats, where we usually get two tacos and two bean burritos. Each time we've done this though the app, we get a free menu item which is limited to the cheap menu items, like tacos and bean burritos, but that's OK for us because that's what we order! Wendy's 4-for$4 is another good option, especially since it comes with a drink.
Arby's sometimes has coupons; it's far enough away that we don't go there too often. Bojangles is comparatively expensive ($14 for the two of us), but now that they've put one about a mile from our house, we eat there entirely too often! Sometimes they have manager's specials with thighs for 99 cents, which is a pretty good deal. Cookout has a ton of food for the price, but the one near us isn't taking many Covid precautions, so they're off the table until after the pandemic. Hopefully others have better practices.
But the best deal we've seen so far is at Burger King. Two junior Whopper meals for two, so 2 jr. Whoppers, 2 small fries, and 2 small drinks, is $5.
Don't overlook the daily specials at the local pizza places, or really any local place. Some of those are a pretty good deal. Same with lunch specials at the Chinese restaurants. Our favorite ends their specials at 2:30pm and sometimes we actually remember before then to get some to reheat for dinner. Yelp and Groupon sometimes have great deals for local places.
For Durham-specific places, Cosmic Cantina has always been really inexpensive with generous portions. Foster's Market's 7-pepper jelly grilled cheese is one of my all-time favorite sandwiches and it's only $6.
Clearly we've eaten too much fast food during the pandemic! We usually don't eat fast food this often, eating most of our meals at home and eating out at locally owned restaurants. I will say it's a lot easier to find deals during non-pandemic dining. One thing we have done during the pandemic is honed our skills at getting our children's eyes rolling at how cheap we can eat! I think we enjoy that game a little too much, haha.