Where to find the best bites under $25 on The N&O’s Top 50 Restaurants list

The News & Observer’s Triangle Top 50 Restaurants project was never about finding the best in fine dining.

We wanted to spotlight the restaurants, diners, bagel shops and pizzerias serving up many of our favorite dishes.

Of the Top 50, there are 18 restaurants where you can grab a meal for less than $25. Sometimes much less.

Here are the best, most affordable restaurants in the Triangle Top 50.

Aaktun

The trend of all-day cafes is suddenly everywhere, promising coffee and pastries, sandwiches and late-night cocktails. No one does the all-day cafe quite like Aaktun, which looks more like a seaside Mexican cave than a restaurant. Hit up Aaktun for breakfast and lunch and run into griddled Challah bread sandos, stuffed with scrambled eggs and chorizo, or a plate of totchos.

704 Ramseur St., Durham and 401 E. Main St., Clayton | aaktun.info | $ - $ $ $

Benchwarmers Bagels

The fire in this wood-burning oven was lit with an audacious idea: that great bagels could exist in the Biscuit Belt. Leave it to the fermented minds behind Raleigh’s great Boulted Bread to pull off world-class bagels while pushing the form: Grits bagels, anyone? The days of AM sellouts are over, thank goodness, meaning you can now walk up and out quickly with housemade lox atop a creamy, tangy spread of smashed deviled eggs between the explosive confetti of a crispy, chewy everything bagel. But don’t sleep on the simple $4.25 pleasure of drip coffee, plain bagel and plain cream cheese.

500 E. Davie St., #107, Raleigh (in Transfer Food Hall) and 1015 S. Saunders St., Raleigh and (to come) 540 St. Albans Drive, Raleigh | benchwarmersbagels.com | $

Big Dom’s Bagels

A funny thing happens when a bagel scene sprouts up out of nothing: anything goes. So Amber and Zach Faulisi took over a small shack that used to be a Little Caesars and turned it into a bagel shop unlike any other, possibly, in the world. Big Dom’s bakes its bagels in the conveyor belt pizza oven left behind, each bagel slicked with Crisco, coming out dappled with shatteringly crispy bubbles. The bagel sandwiches remake the standards, ham and cheese layered like laminated dough and set off with zippy “Zazzy” sauce. In the summer, you’ll want a thick slice of tomato, melted slightly under cheese.

203 E. Chatham St., Cary | bigdomsbagelshop.com | $

The Chicken Hut

Now in its seventh decade, the Chicken Hut is Durham’s oldest Black-owned restaurant, remaining with its founding family. The superb fried chicken is served every day, though the specials change daily, sometimes smothered pork chops or braised oxtails in a rich gravy. Though it’s named for its signature dish, it’s hard not to make a vegetable plate of boiled cabbage, collards, mac and cheese and okra. Recently Durham made the obvious official, declaring the Chicken Hut a historic landmark, noting its role as a community hub during the Civil Rights Movement and legacy as the city’s oldest Black-owned restaurant.

3019 Fayetteville St., Durham | chickenhutnc.weebly.com | $

Chuan Cafe

This is the place to come for the tingle and thrill of Szechuan cuisine, where the Spicy Chongqing noodles are slicked with chili oil and numbing peppercorns, though the fiery Dan Dan noodles are the most popular plate. Make sure to get at least one dry fried dish, maybe broccoli topped with those prickly peppercorns and dried chilies, or the crispy, tender fried flounder, served on a bamboo platter.

2004 New Bern Ave., Raleigh | chuanxiacafe.com | $ - $ $

Dampf Good BBQ

The Dampf brothers promise a brick and mortar is on the way one day, but no one seems to mind standing in line at this perennial pop-up — the only Michelin-rated food trailer in North Carolina. You don’t need walls when the brisket is the real Texas-style deal, unctuous and heavenly, or when the sausage game is the most creative in the Triangle. Maybe they’ll have a front door one day, but we don’t care.

6800 Good Hope Church Rd, Cary | dampfgoodbbq.com | $ - $ $ $

Elmo’s Diner

Elmo’s is proof that those charming diners from the movies truly do exist in real life. From the basic mugs filled with Counter Culture coffee, the dapple pancakes and perfectly runny eggs, everything at Elmo’s takes the mythic model of the American Diner and makes it a little bit better. Here, breakfast feels like an event and biscuits and gravy feel life-affirming, which is why if you’re searching for Elmo’s on a Sunday morning, just look for the crowd on its porch, eagerly awaiting tables.

776 9th St., Durham | elmosdiner.com | $

Ex-Voto

This isn’t the restaurant Angela Salamanca and Marshall Davis imagined they’d open, conceived in a different time as a love letter to heirloom corn, to the richness to be found in artisan tortillas. Instead, Ex-Voto is an irreverent ode to fast-food nostalgia — specifically the crunchwrap supreme. A celebration of form, these fancy crunchwraps are stuffed with braised short ribs or spicy fried shrimp, bacon-fat beans and salsas, and sealed closed with griddled cheese. Add jalapeños to truly take it over the top.

430 W. Main St., Durham (in Durham Food Hall) | exvotonc.com | $

Fonda Lupita

A phenomenon since it opened, Fonda Lupita brought the gordita to the mainstream in the Triangle. These pockets of thick, griddled tortillas are stuffed with braised meats — shredded pork in green salsa is peak comfort food. You may get lucky and run into a bowl of fiery red menudo, sometimes a weekday special.

1952 S. Horner Blvd., Sanford and 905 W. Main St. #21A, Durham | fondalupita.com | $ - $ $

G’s Tacos

This popular food truck should be praised for its traveling trompo, a rarity in the Triangle’s otherwise robust taco scene. G’s is a spin-off from the giant Gym Tacos, and still operates as a food truck parked on the edge of a gas station parking lot. Everything is made in-house, from the tender griddled tortillas to the chorizo sausage. But if the trompo is spinning, how do you not get crisped-up al pastor?

220 E. Six Forks Road, Raleigh | tacosbyg.com | $

Ideal’s Sandwich & Grocery

By the time you walk back to your car, part of the paper wrapped around your roast pork sandwich has already turned translucent, offering a greasy glimpse at the bright green broccoli rabe, the smear of garlic mayo and all the other indulgent wonders that await inside. Ideal’s happens to serve sandwiches. That is, this tiny East Durham shop, helmed by two grads of a fancy culinary school, seems able to do anything it wants, and it happens to serve otherworldly, regionally specific, frenzy-inducing sandwiches. If you’re not feeling the Philly-style roast pork on a particular day, maybe it’s time to try the chopped cheese, a Harlem icon, recreated on a Durham griddle with all the peppery, gooey, beefy intensity that a sandwich could possibly muster. Make sure you grab a bag of paper thin potato chips and at least one brown butter chocolate chip cookie.

2108 Angier Ave., Durham | idealsdeli.com | $

Lawrence Barbecue

Barbecue is a serious matter in North Carolina, but at Lawrence, it’s always serious fun. There’s value to be found on the Lawrence sando menu, where you’ll find a lineup of chicken sandwiches, smoked pork and burgers for under $20.

150 E. Cedar St., Cary | lawrencebarbecue.com | $ - $ $ $

Oakwood Pizza Box

Somehow Oakwood Pizza Box manages to remind you of the uncomplicated joy of your favorite childhood pizza place, where maybe you gently folded the slices and left the crusts for your parents. You probably don’t do that anymore, or shouldn’t if you’re eating at Oakwood, where the crust is as flavorful as a fine baguette. The pies are simple, but they’re not humble. There’s even a semi-secret wine list with fine Champagne and red Burgundy, cluing you in that you’ve found the good stuff.

610 N. Person St., Raleigh and 1842 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh | oakwoodpizzabox.com | $ - $ $

Prime BBQ

North Carolina’s proud barbecue tradition has taken an uncomfortable backseat to the nation’s buzzy obsession with Texas, swooning over brisket, dinosaur-sized beef ribs and sausage. Prime BBQ in Knightdale is a full-throated rebuttal for an entire state’s barbecue grievances. At Prime, owner and James Beard semifinalist Christopher Prieto serves tender, smoky brisket, glistening with fat and a black pepper bark, widely lauded pastrami, giant ribs and snappy sausages. But he also pushes the conversation forward, serving whole hog, North Carolina’s most cherished contribution to barbecue, but with tangy mojo sauce and rice and beans, honoring his own Puerto Rican roots. America’s barbecue scene is better for it.

403 Knightdale Station Run, Knightdale | prime-bbq.com | $ - $ $ $

Rose’s Noodles, Dumplings & Sweets

Not that long ago, Rose’s wasn’t a restaurant at all; it was a whole-animal butcher shop that ran a ramen special for lunch one day a week. That ramen is truly something special, changing weekly and seasonally, but always a reliable umami bomb, often riffing on traditional miso and tonkotsu, even appearing as a cold tomato ramen in the searing Durham summertime. Don’t miss the steamed pork bun, pillowy and sweet, and never skip dessert, including the Triangle’s very best ice cream sandwiches — like burnt honey ice cream between gingersnap cookies.

121 N. Gregson St., Durham | rosesdurham.com | $ - $ $

Saltbox Seafood Joint

Even 150 miles inland, it seems like a wave could break in the dining room of Saltbox Seafood Joint. Of all the restaurants in the Triangle, Saltbox has the simplest concept — fried seafood — and the most difficult to pull off. In this A-frame shack, decorated with crab traps and buoys, Chef Ricky Moore keeps his promise of fresh North Carolina seafood, delicately fried, assertively seasoned and painstakingly sourced from the deep waters and cozy inlets along our coast. Saltbox can put any of its seasonal catches on a roll and serve up a life-changing fish sandwich for less than $25.

2637 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham | saltboxseafoodjoint.com | $ $

Sam Jones BBQ

If you’re able, you should take a drive out to Eastern North Carolina and eat at Skylight Inn, one of the state’s finest barbecue temples. If you have the same hankering for North Carolina-style whole-hog barbecue and only your lunch hour to spare, you should go to Sam Jones BBQ in Downtown Raleigh. As barbecue bloodlines go, Jones is royalty in North Carolina, a third-generation pitmaster who serves the same hand-chopped whole hog that his grandfather made famous, where the pork skin gets blasted with the coals, crisped up and mixed in for the most satisfying crunch in barbecue. But Sam Jones BBQ goes beyond that, serving smoky dry-rubbed chicken, new school sides like mac and cheese and barbecue baked potatoes and, sneakily, one of Raleigh’s best bourbon selections.

502 W. Lenoir St., Raleigh | samjonesbbq.com | $ - $ $

Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen

In the South, a biscuit is an expression of love. At Sunrise, that love is simple and sublime, with little more than a pat of butter. The biscuits at Sunrise, crumbly and tender, bake up deeply browned. Since it’s drive-thru-only, most are eaten in the driver’s seats of cars, unfurled from parchment paper on dashboards as if waiting even a moment more would spoil the gift. Though the adornments of a biscuit are a personal journey, a piece of fried chicken with sharp Texas Pete hot sauce seems like a good way to start the best mornings.

1305 E. Franklin St., Chapel Hill | sunrisebiscuits.com | $

This story was originally published April 13, 2026 at 10:47 AM with the headline "Where to find the best bites under $25 on The N&O’s Top 50 Restaurants list."

Drew Jackson

The News & Observer

919-829-4707

Drew Jackson writes about restaurants and dining for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun, covering the food scene in the Triangle and North Carolina.