Cheap Eats in St Augustine: Six Budget Choices

A cheese-sealed UFO at Burrito Works Taco Shop, a breakfast burrito at The Blue Hen Café or tofu tacos at Osprey Tacos can make a substantial stop without turning lunch into a restaurant occasion. The Kookaburra Downtown suits a smaller appetite, with an Australian-inspired breakfast pie beside the Plaza de la Constitución.

These six choices cover the historic centre, King Street and Anastasia Island. Choose by where you will be and how hungry you are, rather than treating them as a food trail.

Budget meals at a glance

Venue	Area	Order per person	Typical food spend	Weekly closing day
The Kookaburra Downtown	Historic centre	One True Blue pie, light bite	US$6–10	None, open daily
Burrito Works Taco Shop	St George Street	One UFO	US$12–18	None, open daily
Crave	King Street	One taco-meat wrap	US$12–17	Sunday
The Blue Hen Café	West King Street	One breakfast burrito	US$12–17	Tuesday and Wednesday
Osprey Tacos	Anastasia Boulevard	Two or three crispy tofu tacos	US$10–18	None, open daily
Nalu’s Tropical Takeout	Near Anastasia State Park	Two or three Datil BBQ tacos	US$10–18	Monday–Wednesday, summer hours

Allow up to US$20 per person for food only. Drinks, sales tax and gratuities are separate, so your final bill can exceed that ceiling. Adding sides or extra fillings also leaves less of the food allowance for your main order.

Choose the larger taco order for a bigger appetite, with spending moving towards the upper end of its range. The pie order suits a pause between sights rather than a full lunch.

Most choices suit casual counter service. Allow time for queues and seats, and treat Blue Hen as a seated café. For a longer restaurant occasion, sit-down meals in St Augustine offer a different way to spend lunch or an evening.

The Kookaburra Downtown

The Kookaburra Downtown brings Australian coffee culture together with breakfast pies. Look for the True Blue brekkie pie, filled with egg and Cheddar and topped with rosemary. “Brekkie” means breakfast, and this savoury order gives you something more substantial than coffee alone without committing to a large meal.

Daily pie offerings vary, so the True Blue is an order to look for rather than a guaranteed choice. One pie suits a lighter appetite. If you want a fuller breakfast, extra food changes the size and cost of the order, while coffee adds to the drinks bill rather than the food allowance.

The nearby Plaza de la Constitución gives this stop a clear place in a morning exploring the historic centre. Its gazebo and public-square setting are worth noticing before you continue sightseeing. Choose the café when a pie-and-coffee pause fits your day, rather than expecting a plated breakfast.

Burrito Works Taco Shop

Burrito Works Taco Shop makes the UFO its distinctive substantial order: a filled tortilla sealed with cheese. At the St George Street branch, this Baja-Mexican option works well when you want a single main item during a day in the historic centre.

Inside are rice, black or refried beans and your choice of protein. Coriander, onion, lime and salsa bring sharper flavours, while cheese and sour cream make the filling richer. Choose the beans and protein you actually want, rather than assuming every UFO is the same order. Those choices can also move the cost within the food allowance.

There is indoor seating, but only a handful of tables. If sitting down matters, allow time for one to become free instead of relying on an immediate seat. St George Street puts the branch among the historic centre’s pedestrian sightseeing streets, making it a convenient food stop without leaving that part of town.

On Friday–Sunday, food service continues until 2:30am. The later weekend service makes the UFO an option after an evening out as well as at lunch.

Crave

Crave’s taco-meat wrap is a lunch choice built around house-made vegan taco meat. That describes the filling, not necessarily every component of the finished wrap, so if you avoid all animal products, make that clear when ordering.

Crave began as a food truck before opening on King Street. Its health-focused wraps and bowls give the café a different identity from a conventional sandwich stop, with the taco-meat wrap a specific order to choose when you want a handheld lunch. Keep additions modest if you want the wrap to remain within the food allowance, rather than building a larger meal around it.

King Street places the café west of the central historic sights. It suits a daytime food stop as you explore that side of town, rather than an evening meal. The street’s longer history is visible in the historic stereoscopic photograph below, which depicts an earlier King Street rather than the café’s present-day surroundings.

The Blue Hen Café

The Blue Hen Café’s breakfast burrito makes a substantial start with two eggs, black beans, home fries, Cheddar Jack cheese and salsa. The potatoes are part of the order, so you need not add a separate potato dish to make breakfast filling.

This is a seated café with a Southern breakfast-and-lunch identity. On West King Street, it fits a morning when you want to pause over a full breakfast rather than eat while continuing through the historic centre. Make the burrito the main order and judge any extras by your appetite.

Biscuits, American savoury quick breads, with peach butter are another of the café’s specialities. They make an optional extra rather than an essential accompaniment to the burrito. Adding one gives you a taste of that Southern baking tradition, but it also raises the food bill.

The pictured breakfast burrito is from another café, not Blue Hen, and includes different fillings.

Osprey Tacos

Osprey Tacos gives its crispy tofu taco a distinctive combination of sweet, sour and spicy flavours. The filling is sweet-and-sour fried tofu with cabbage and spring onions, finished with hoisin, a sweet savoury sauce, and sriracha aioli. Choose it for the dressed fried-tofu filling, rather than expecting a plain vegetable taco.

Make the tacos your main food purchase if staying within the ceiling matters. Choose the quantity in the table to suit your appetite, and allow room in the food budget before adding sides.

The Anastasia Boulevard location puts Osprey Tacos on Anastasia Island. It is a useful choice when your sightseeing has brought you across the Bridge of Lions and you want an island food stop rather than returning to the historic centre to eat.

The pictured tofu tacos illustrate the dish, but their chipotle lime ranch topping differs from Osprey’s preparation.

Nalu’s Tropical Takeout

Nalu’s Tropical Takeout sits just outside Surf Station, giving this taco-and-wrap stop a surf-shop setting near Anastasia State Park. Look for the Datil BBQ tacos for a takeout lunch near the park. Datil is the local hot pepper that gives the barbecue sauce its name.

Order a meal-sized quantity rather than expecting one taco to keep you going through an afternoon outdoors. Keep the tacos as the centre of the order, with any extras chosen after you have considered how hungry you are. Takeout is the point here, so this stop suits a day when you want food to carry away rather than a long café meal.

Treat Nalu’s published service window as summer hours. A lunch stop fits that seasonal daytime service, while an evening food stop calls for a different choice. The Surf Station landmark helps you recognise where to turn for food along Anastasia Boulevard.

The pictured barbecue tacos are from Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, not Nalu’s, and do not show the Datil BBQ order.

Sources & fact-checking

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

• Nalu’s Tropical Takeout — key figures
• The Blue Hen Café — key figures
• Osprey Tacos — key figures
• The Kookaburra — closures
• The Kookaburra — key figures
• Visit St. Augustine — service
• Burrito Works — opening hours
• Burrito Works — key figures