Cheap Eats in Savannah: Five Meals for $20 or Less

A few sliders with fries, a stuffed French toast breakfast or a large savoury pie can make a substantial Savannah meal without spending your whole budget on food. These five choices keep typical food spending within $20 per person.

Clary’s Cafe suits a seated breakfast near Forsyth Park; Goose Feathers is a downtown daytime stop. For a casual dinner, look to Sly’s Sliders and Fries or Vinnie Van Go-Go’s, while The Little Crown offers a pie-and-pub setting in City Market.

Choose a meal for your budget

Venue	Area	Order	Typical food spending per person
Sly’s Sliders and Fries	South of Forsyth Park	Three sliders, including The Boardwalk, plus fries	$12–$18
Clary’s Cafe	Southern Historic District	Stuffed French Toast	$12–$16
Goose Feathers Cafe & Bakery	Downtown, near Ellis Square	Bird’s Nest	$11–$14
Vinnie Van Go-Go’s	City Market	Two pepperoni slices	$10–$16
The Little Crown by Pie Society	City Market	Large Steak & Ale Pie	$10–$16

These rounded ranges cover food only, not drinks, sales tax or any applicable tip. They allow you to choose a filling order rather than mistake the price of one small slider or a bakery snack for the cost of a meal. Appetite matters: start with the suggested order rather than adding extras simply because each item looks inexpensive.

Treat these as flexible walk-in meals and allow time for a queue or a seat, particularly if you arrive hungry at a busy mealtime. Their locations range from south of Forsyth Park through the southern Historic District to downtown and City Market. Choose somewhere near the part of Savannah you are exploring, then match it to breakfast, lunch or dinner rather than making a detour for a snack.

Sly’s Sliders and Fries

Sly’s Sliders and Fries makes small-format sandwiches the centre of a meal. Order a few sliders, including The Boardwalk, with fries separately, rather than expecting a single slider to stand in for lunch. The small format lets you build the meal around your appetite, and it is also the useful answer if you want variety without committing to one full-sized sandwich.

The operating location is at 1710 Abercorn Street, south of Forsyth Park. It makes most sense when you are already exploring beyond the southern Historic District, rather than looking for a bite around City Market. Sly’s is an inexpensive choice for either lunch or a casual dinner, so you need not squeeze it into a daytime sightseeing break.

Sly’s is a budget pick in local Savannah food guides, making it a useful answer if you want a locally recommended inexpensive meal. Its small sliders suit choosing several different sandwiches at one stop, rather than committing to a single large burger.

Clary’s Cafe

Clary’s Cafe offers a seated, sweet breakfast with a setting rooted in Savannah’s everyday history. Choose the Stuffed French Toast, made with thick-sliced bread filled with strawberries and cream cheese. This is the substantial breakfast order here, rather than a pastry bought to eat while you walk.

Clary’s began as a drugstore in 1903, with a soda fountain, before becoming a café. Its drugstore origins and memorabilia give you something distinctive to notice during the meal. You can make breakfast itself a pause in the day, not just a quick stop before sightseeing.

On Abercorn Street in the southern Historic District, Clary’s fits a visit near Forsyth Park. Breakfast is served throughout its opening day, so the French toast still works if your morning starts slowly or you prefer breakfast food at lunchtime. The café opens daily but finishes in the early afternoon; plan it as breakfast or lunch, not dinner.

Goose Feathers Cafe & Bakery

Goose Feathers Cafe & Bakery is the downtown choice for a savoury breakfast near Ellis Square. Order the Bird’s Nest, a bowl of grits, ground-maize porridge, with poached eggs, homemade salsa, white Vermont cheddar and parsley. The eggs and cheese make this a more substantial starting point than choosing a single baked treat.

The Bird’s Nest costs $11 on the menu. It gives you a clear food order before you decide whether to add something from the bakery. Goose Feathers makes fresh-baked croissants, muffins, scones and pastries, so the bakery is part of its identity rather than simply a name on the door.

The café’s Barnard Street location is handy for a morning around Ellis Square and the neighbouring downtown streets. Use it for breakfast or a daytime meal, not dinner. It opens every day, with a slightly later start at weekends than on weekdays, and finishes in the afternoon. Have the bowl as your meal. Choose a baked extra because you want it, not because breakfast has to include one.

Vinnie Van Go-Go’s

Vinnie Van Go-Go’s is the pizza choice in City Market, with pepperoni available as a named slice topping. Make two pepperoni slices your meal order, rather than budgeting for just one slice when you want dinner. Its slices are notably large, “the size of your head”, so the suggested order is a starting point to judge against your appetite.

The pizzeria is on West Bryan Street, which makes it a straightforward meal stop while spending time around City Market. Pizza by the slice lets you choose a specific topping without ordering a whole pie. That is useful for a solo traveller or a group whose members want to order separately.

Monday to Thursday, plan Vinnie’s for dinner: it opens at 4pm. Friday, Saturday and Sunday offer lunch as well as dinner. If you are walking around City Market before lunch on a weekday, save this pizza stop for later. It opens every day, so the choice is about the time of your meal rather than avoiding a weekly closing day.

The Little Crown by Pie Society

The Little Crown by Pie Society pairs a traditional British meat pie with a miniature pub setting on Jefferson Street in City Market. Choose the large Steak & Ale Pie for a substantial meal. The individual pies come in regular and large sizes, so size is the useful decision here rather than treating the smallest serving as everyone’s lunch.

Savannah’s smallest British pub experience has a miniature bar where you can sit with a pie. It suits a pause over food as well as a bakery purchase. An English pub ale or cocktail is an optional addition, not part of the pie order’s food budget.

For a pie lunch or early meal, use the daytime food-service windows below. Sunday calls for an earlier pie stop than the rest of the week. The pub setting need not turn this into a drinking occasion: the large individual pie is the reason to come when you want a savoury meal in City Market.

Food service, Monday–Friday

11am–6:30pm

Food service, Saturday

10am–6:30pm

Food service, Sunday

10am–4pm

Sources & fact-checking

Checks against the sources below cover: opening hours and key figures.

• British Pie Society — opening hours
• Pie Society — key figures
• Sly’s Sliders and Fries — opening hours
• Sly’s Sliders and Fries Menu | Sliders, Fries & More
• Sly’s Sliders and Fries Locations | Find a Sly’s
• Goose Feathers Cafe & Bakery — key figures
• Vinnie Van Go-Go’s — opening hours
• Vinnie Van Go-Go’s — key figures