Guides ·Food & drink

Slices and pizza

DeFazio's Pizzeria at the Empire State Plaza concourse: $3.50 a slice, wood-fired. The proper DeFazio's is in Troy and worth the trip. I Love NY Pizza on Central Avenue does a $4 slice with better crust than the price suggests. Bombers on Lark Street sells a slice-plus-drink for $6. The Plaza concourse location only serves the weekday lunch crowd of state workers, so it closes by 3pm and skips weekends entirely — plan around that if you're visiting on a Saturday. The Troy original on Fourth Street bakes in a coal-fired oven and stays open into the evening, which is the better call if you have a car or don't mind the fifteen-minute drive across the river.

For sit-down speed, I Love NY Pizza edges out the concourse stall because it's open seven days and the counter staff will reheat a slice fresh rather than hand you one that's been sitting under a lamp. Bombers' $6 slice-and-drink deal is really aimed at Lark Street bar crowds after 9pm, and the slice itself is thinner than DeFazio's or I Love NY's — fine for a late snack, not the meal to plan a trip around. If I had to pick one pizza stop in Albany proper on a weekday, it's I Love NY Pizza on Central Avenue; if you're willing to cross into Troy, DeFazio's wins outright.

Burritos, tacos, banh mi

Bombers Burrito Bar on Lark Street: a $9 stuffed burrito that feeds two. El Loco Mexican Cafe on Madison Avenue: 3 tacos for $9. Van's Vietnamese on Madison Avenue: banh mi for $7, pho for $12 (over budget but flagged for the value). Bombers wraps its burrito tight enough that splitting it with a second fork doesn't make a mess, and the line moves fast even on a Friday night. El Loco's tacos come on soft corn tortillas with a choice of three fillings, and the salsa bar at the counter is free and worth loading up on since it's the only sauce you'll get. Van's sits a few doors down from El Loco on Madison Avenue, so a single trip out to that stretch can cover both a banh mi and a taco run in the same afternoon.

Of the three, Van's banh mi is the best value per dollar — a $7 sandwich with pickled carrot, cilantro, and your choice of pork or tofu that's genuinely filling, not a snack. El Loco's $9 taco plate suits someone who wants variety across three small bites rather than one big sandwich. Skip the pho unless you've got $12 and twenty minutes to sit, since it's the one item here that breaks the under-$10 rule and doesn't travel well in a to-go container. For a quick lunch between meetings downtown, Van's banh mi is the one to order.

Diners and mini dogs

Miss Albany Diner (Broadway): breakfast plate under $10 if you skip the sides. Cardona's Market on Delaware Avenue: Italian deli sandwiches $8 to $10, big enough to split. Gus's Hot Dogs in Watervliet: six mini dogs with everything, $10. Cash only. Miss Albany Diner occupies a genuine vintage diner car on Broadway near the Livingston Avenue Bridge, and the two-egg breakfast with toast stays under $10 as long as you wave off the home fries upgrade. Cardona's Market has been slicing meat on Delaware Avenue for decades, and asking for a half sandwich instead of a whole one is a normal order there, not a special request. Gus's Hot Dogs runs out of a small Watervliet storefront about three miles north of downtown Albany and keeps famously odd hours, often opening only in the evening and running past midnight on weekends.

Gus's is the one worth planning a specific trip for rather than stumbling into: six mini dogs loaded with mustard, onions, and sauce for $10 is Albany's best-known late-night cheap eat, and the cash-only rule catches out-of-towners more than the odd hours do, so bring small bills. Cardona's beats Miss Albany Diner for lunch because the sandwiches travel well if you're eating on a bench in nearby Lincoln Park, while the diner is the better pick for an actual sit-down breakfast with coffee refills. Between the three, Gus's is the one you tell people about afterward.

Coffee, bagels, and a quick breakfast

Bros Bagels, on the list above for a $6 to $9 breakfast, bakes its bagels fresh through the morning rather than shipping in frozen dough, and a bagel with cream cheese plus a coffee comes to about $6.50 before tax. It's a standing-room, order-at-the-counter setup rather than a sit-down diner, so it suits someone grabbing breakfast on the way to a meeting downtown rather than someone who wants a table and a newspaper. Weekday mornings get a short line of downtown office workers between 8am and 9am, so arriving before 8am or after 9:30am avoids the wait.

For a cheaper caffeine fix than a chain coffee shop, most of the diners and delis already listed pour a drip coffee for $2 to $2.50, which is worth remembering if you're stacking a breakfast order and trying to stay under $10 total. A bagel and coffee from Bros Bagels lands right at the edge of that budget, so skip the flavored cream cheese upgrade if you want room for a tip. If you're staying downtown and want breakfast without a car, Bros Bagels is the most walkable of the options in this guide.

Food trucks and the Empire State Plaza market

Empire State Plaza runs a rotating lineup of food trucks on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11am to 2pm during the warmer months, mentioned above for its $8 to $12 price range, parked along the concourse level where state employees eat lunch outdoors. The lineup changes with the seasons and typically starts back up in spring and winds down by late October, so this isn't a year-round option if you're visiting in January. Trucks accept cards as often as cash now, which makes them an easier stop than Gus's Hot Dogs if you've forgotten to hit an ATM.

The catch is that prices here run a few dollars higher than the sit-down spots in this guide, so a food truck lunch is more likely to land at $10 to $12 than under $10 — still worth flagging for the honest value, since portions tend to be generous. Because the schedule is tied to state office hours, weekends and holidays are dead at the Plaza; don't plan a Saturday trip around it. If you're downtown on a Wednesday or Friday at lunchtime, it's worth the short walk over before defaulting to a sit-down spot.

Delis, markets, and splitting a meal

Cardona's Market, already mentioned for its $8 to $10 deli sandwiches on Delaware Avenue, is really a full Italian grocery with a deli counter at the back, which means you can build a cheaper meal by buying bread, meat, and cheese separately rather than ordering a made sandwich, if you're staying somewhere with a kitchen. The same logic applies at Bombers Burrito Bar and El Loco: portions are large enough that two people splitting one order can each spend under $6, which is the real way most of these prices work out to less than $10 a head.

Splitting works less well at Gus's Hot Dogs, since six mini dogs for $10 is already priced for sharing between two people as written, and at Van's, where a single banh mi is sized for one. The general rule across this list: the bigger the single order, the more it rewards two people ordering one thing instead of two people ordering two. If you're traveling with a companion and trying to stretch a food budget across a full day in Albany, plan on splitting at Bombers or Cardona's and ordering solo at Gus's or Van's.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask before they set off on this one.

Rooms worth pairing with this guide.

Downtown Albany DoubleTree by Hilton Schenectady Downtown

4.2/5 $185/ night

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4.2/5 $166/ night

Downtown Albany Hampton Inn Schenectady Downtown

4.2/5 $192/ night

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