This is a great idea I fully commend. An additional option for meals under $10 is cooking them oneself too.

I know this might appear to be obvious, but is still a viable option IMHO. A used copy of the "Joy of Cooking" book and some creative shopping can go a long way.

This feels like GasBuddy, but for food.

One of the reasons GasBuddy took off was that it wasn't just based on community reports; there was an incentive for gas stations themselves to accurately report their prices and keep them up to date.

It seems like you're trying to discourage businesses from participating (e.g. by not accepting sponsored placements), and that will have implications for your growth rate. I think you should look for ways to give businesses an active role, without eroding user trust in the recommendations, of course.

Think of the possibilities:

- Business can add coupons to its listing, making cheap food even cheaper

- Business can confirm a reported deal, adding to its credibility

- Business can provide full menu and a link to order takeout

I don't think any of those features would make users feel like the business is "buying" a listing it didn't earn.

$10 isn't $10 everywhere. There are still places in the country where $10 feels expensive. You may want to add a filter for even cheaper meals.

On the other end, increasingly, even fast food combos are more than $10. It would be helpful to highlight franchise meals that are actually affordable. Just don't let people add dollar menus or non-combos.

Posts should somehow only admit whole meals. If someone says their local taco truck sells a single street taco for $6.99, that's means a meal is more like $20.

Sam's Club Cafe sells $1 hot dogs and $2.50 pizza slices with a drink, and it doesn't not require a membership to visit.

Larger families (4+ kids) shop at Warehouse clubs because they need items in bulk, but they are also often cost sensitive because they have a higher multiplier. You might see a family of 8 eating for under $20. Talk to that family, and they will tell you all the other places in town that they can afford to take their family to. They will also know other families who would be interested in your site.

Could see this being useful for people who are on the road for a living, or regularly operating in areas where they’re not familiar with the offerings. Truck drivers, salespeople, etc.

That said, kneejerk after using it is: price is a challenging anchor, because food is not uniform. I’d be curious if users are more interested in “under $10, ignoring all else” or “a better deal than comparable” - though, there’s a lot of subjectivity in that.

Gasbuddy works because 1 gallon of gas = 1 gallon of gas, so price is a useful anchor.

$5 for sushi at one place could be a bad deal, while a great deal at another place.

An $8 steak would be cheap. An $8 hot dog would be a ripoff.

I’d be skeptical of restaurants luring people with a single cheap item, or about quality/portion changes.

All this said, Ikea is known for designing furniture _around_ the price their target customer thinks a table should cost. Restaurants are likely (hopefully!) aware of where these price thresholds are for their customers … and your site could be an interesting way of sending them a different type of customer than they’d historically targeted. Or, allow them to refine an offering to maximize profit at the $10 price point.

As others have said, engage restaurants and make them part of the equation. They’re not your adversary.

In short: cool! Do lots of experiments and research!

One thing I’d recommend is somehow separating a la carte versus full meal type items if theres a way to separate them on the data side. You should see this in Texas where you might have a taco place with a $4 taco or Vietnamese with a $9 banh mi, the latter being substantially more food.

Also the map viewport does’t restore when click back from a restaurant/menu item page and it throws me back to Texas.

Would love a gluten-free / dietary restriction filter, or at least a filter where gluten/wheat is not an ingredient (separate from cross-contamination). Unfortunately, cheap-ish food is harder to find with dietary restrictions. Even filtering by Asian, Mexican, Italian, Mediterranean, etc., would be helpful.

Also, a way to verify or link to the menu item, hours, etc., at a place would also be helpful.

How do you vet 'a meal'? Manually? I ask because some places will have say fries, or sides or $1 oysters or others will have $2 wings but with a minimum purchase of 6.

Otherwise, great job. I like it.

The leaderboard with acorns is a smart touch. gamification might actually solve your price freshness problem better than anything else. If updating a price earned acorns too, your top contributors would keep the data current for you. Nice project, and the 10% to food banks commitment on the about page is a good look.

I love the idea, but a quick glance (randomly at SF) reveals entries that aren't "meals" (IMO, anyway) but rather snacks - like two spring rolls for $8, or a slice of pizza for $5.53. Also, the days of a $1 slice may have (long) gone, but $5.33 for a slice seems median at best, not "cheap".

Have you thought about either some guidance, or even a filter, for meal size?

I just tried to add a place in Rahat, Israel, but the site seems US only. Go ahead and open it up internationally. I only know two places with under-$10 USD meals, but I love them both.

Neat idea.

I don't like giving my location, zip code should be good enough. I think if I tap List it kind of works but not really. I'm in SoCal for what it's worth.

it's not working for me. probably just slammed.

it'd be nice to be able to actually just click on a restaurant listing in the map rather than having to search for it.

also, happy hour options might make sense -- maybe some way to filter out (or see) results that are only available during a happy hour. Users could check "happy hour item" and enter the times for the happy hour.

finally, if people enter cheap items that aren't large enough to be a "meal" (like one taco for $3.50) this might become less useful.

At the bottom of the lists, after you've scrolled through and clicked on some restaurants, you should have a "I'll do it myself" button that uses some llm to create a $10 meal recipe using the restaurants you clicked as inspiration.

Define "good" and "meal"

Can you give us negative filters? Literally nothing but Mexican food listings in my area.

Tried to add a spot in New Zealand and couldn't select the address.

Bahn Bi at Miss Saigon in BNZ Centre, Christchurch if anyone is looking!

I tried to add some spots in Berlin, but when I'm looking at the spot on the map and then click "Drop a spot" and type the restaurant name it's not finding it.

I like the idea. It would be nice a worldwide map. I mean, not only across the US.

Would love to see restaurants in Canada included

When visiting the US, I lerned that a meal that costs 10$ is actually 10$ + some random tax + a tip = 20$

I like that I can filter by a specific area, but I wonder if people would be better served to get down to regions instead of a city. Dallas is pretty big, and I don't want to drive from Love Field all the way to Lakeside for lunch...

It would be great to somehow either

- Get to the map from a city list

- refine the city to a neighborhood level

Nice! I've always wanted something like this clubbed with Coupons, Offers and combos that can be a steal deal sometimes.

(US only)

neat site. just added a spot for Savannah, GA. I submitted my email for a magic link, but nothing arrived (yet) fyi.

I also live in Dallas and had a feeling Fuel City would be #1 or close to it. Apparently, there's a taco place a few miles away in Bishop Arts that is 2 cents cheaper, but I bet they don't have outdoor block parties with live DJs, longhorns on site, a swimming pool with a statue of a velociraptor, or a huge neon sign over a gas station saying "Where Dreams Come True." I'm sticking with Fuel City. There are downsides hard to account for with price alone, though. Riverfront Blvd has been under construction for 7 years and hasn't had usable sidewalks in longer than I can remember, so you have no choice but to drive there. Plenty of other places I can walk to, so in practice, that's usually what I do.

Dropped a couple spots in my area. I like seeing the deals in the community section.

거지맵 meaning beggar is a generous translation of the word

I wish this had existed when I was a student. Please support non-US locations as well.

Do you filter out snacks/appetizers?

Great app. Not a great sign for global economy.

Why wouldn't you just use Google Maps with a single-$ price filter?

I love it, but I want EU support!

What about just linking their Google Business instead of filling out a submission and uploading photos? That actually helps the business rank more.

A lot of things aren't healthy like pizza and fried chicken.

They should add the cost of future open heart surgery to the cheap meal.

See also, Too Good To Go, which has full meals at the end of the day and often comes under 10 dollars. I use this quite a lot as you basically get the same food, you just can't choose what you want, they just give you whatever, but it's supposed to be 3x worth the sticker price ie an 8 dollar TGTG meal must be worth 24 bucks retail.

It will end up like this:

- $9.99 (slob food that much cheaper if you bought it from any grocery store)

- $5.99 delivery

- $7.99 tip

- $2.99 service fee

- sales tax on all that

Total: ~$30.

No results in my particular metro area, but I love the idea!