🌲 Portland, OR · 23 deals · Updated August 9, 2026
Portland is the one city on this site where the price on the menu is the price you pay — Oregon charges no sales tax, so a $19.90 dinner for two is $19.90 at the till, not $21.79. This page was rebuilt in August 2026 and every card checked against a menu the business itself publishes: 21 of 23 confirmed that way, and the 2 that are not say so on the card. The cheapest real meal in the city is $9.90 — two New York slices on NE 33rd, with $5.00 slices on Hawthorne right behind. A whole cheese pizza on SE Stark is $12.99, four street tacos on Division are $14.00, two banh mi off NE 76th are $14.00, Life of Pie's all-day happy-hour Margherita is $9.00 so two people get a pizza each for $18.00, and three plates of dim sum on 82nd come to $19.85. Organised by neighborhood — downtown, north and northeast, southeast, the Jade District and outer east.
💡 How to eat cheap here: Portland has one structural advantage no other city on this site has — Oregon charges no sales tax, so the menu price is the price, and a $19.90 build stays $19.90 at the till. Beyond that it is a pizza-and-counter town: seven pizzerias put a whole pie or two slices on the table for two under $20, from $9.90 for a pair of slices on NE 33rd and $10.00 on Hawthorne up to $16.25 downtown. Tacos are the other reliable move — $3.50 each on Division, $4.50 on Washington — and so is the small-plate half of a menu: Luc Lac's pho is now $18.70 a bowl, but two of its crispy-roll plates are $19.30, and HK Cafe's dim sum is still under $7 a plate. Head north of Burnside or east of 100th and the whole price ladder drops a rung.
Cards marked ✓ VERIFIED were read off a source the restaurant controls — its own site, its own menu file or its own ordering page. Cards marked ⚠ PRICE CHECK PENDING are places we believe belong here but whose owner price we could not confirm; each one says exactly what to go check.
🌉 Downtown, Old Town & Southwest · 3 spots
The office-and-campus lunch belt — 2nd Avenue, Morrison, Montgomery by PSU, and the Ankeny cart row. Sit-down dinner downtown is expensive; the same rooms at lunch, and the small-plate half of their menus, are not.
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Luc Lac Vietnamese Kitchen
Two Small Plates · $19.30 for two
The downtown late-night Vietnamese institution, and the two-person math is not where people assume. Pho is $18.70 a bowl and banh mi $14.20, so those routes miss badly — but the small plates hold: Veggie Crispy Rolls and Pork Crispy Rolls are $9.65 each, so two come to $19.30, and Cream Cheese Wontons are the same price. Priced off Luc Lac's own menu.
Lebanese on SW Morrison, where the mezze board is the play: Vegan Hummus and Vegetarian Tzatziki are $9.95 each, so two plates and the bread that comes with them is $19.90. Vegetarian Lebney and Vegan Baba Ghannouj are $10.95 if you would rather. Priced off its own Slice ordering page.
A whole cheese pizza is $16.25 and a pepperoni is $16.95 at the PSU-adjacent pub — one pie, split two ways, inside the line with room for a soda. The specialty pies jump to $19.95, which is where a two-person order stops working. Priced off its own Slice ordering page.
Williams, Mississippi, Alberta, Broadway and out to St Johns. This is where the value is: an all-day $9 happy-hour Margherita, $4.95 New York slices on 33rd, $7 banh mi, and a whole cheese pie in St Johns for $13.99.
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NYC Pizzeria
Two New York Slices · $9.90 for two
Slices are $4.95, so two people eat for $9.90 — the cheapest real meal on this page. A whole 16-inch cheese pie is $16.50 if you want leftovers, and the salads start at $6.95. Concordia neighborhood, priced off its own Slice ordering page.
House Special and pork-roll banh mi are $7.00 each, so two people eat for $14.00 — grilled pork, grilled chicken and the tofu versions are $8.00, which still lands at $16.00. Salad rolls are $6.50 for two and a pandan waffle is $3.00. Every price read off the shop's own menu page.
The best-value happy hour in the city and it runs 11am to 6pm every single day: a Margherita is $9.00 dine-in, so two people get a pizza each for $18.00, or share one pizza and a $6.00 house beer for $15.00. Takeout Margheritas are $10.00. Confirmed on Life of Pie's own menu page in August 2026.
The Mississippi Avenue pub prices its snack menu for exactly this: fish tacos are $7.00 each, so two is $14.00, and Toronado Potatoes ($8.00) plus a Hummus Platter ($10.00) makes a shared $18.00 spread. Frito Pie and six wings are $11.00. Read off the pub's own food menu.
A whole cheese pizza is $13.99 in St Johns, pepperoni $14.99, and the loaded pies top out at $15.99 — all of them a complete dinner for two on one order. Verona Cheese Bread is $14.99. Priced off its own Slice ordering page.
Guatemalan shucos on NE Sandy — grilled dogs loaded with avocado, cabbage and house sauces. The Regular Mixta is the cheapest at $10.00, so two people land on $20.00 exactly. Mixtos are $15.00 and the Mega is $20.00 apiece, which is where it stops working. This is the tightest card on the page: no room for a drink or a side, though with no Oregon sales tax $20.00 really is the number at the counter.
From the Central Eastside warehouses out along Hawthorne, Belmont, Division and Foster — the densest run of cart-and-counter cooking in the city, plus two rooms better known for $20 entrées whose small-plate menus quietly clear the line. $5.00 New York slices, $3.50 street tacos, $4.00 izakaya plates.
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HOTLIPS Pizza
Two Tuesday Cheese Slices · $5.50 for two
The homegrown Portland pizza maker — seasonal local toppings, its own fruit sodas — runs day deals at the Hawthorne shop: cheese slices are $2.75 all day Tuesday and pepperoni $3.25 all day Monday, so two people eat a couple of slices each for well under $20. Dine-in or walk-up at Hawthorne only.
A plain cheese slice is $5.00, pepperoni $5.25 and the loaded veggie $5.50 — so two people eat for $10.00 and a slice each plus breadsticks ($7.00) is $17.00. A whole 14-inch cheese pie is $20.00, which lands exactly on the line. Read off SFNY's own menu; the Hawthorne and Belmont shops are the Portland pair.
The Tokyo ramen import's Central Eastside izakaya, where the famous bowls are the wrong order and the small plates are the right one. Ramen runs $19–$21 and even the plain Zen bowl is $11, so two is $22 — but six pan-fried gyoza ($12.00) plus edamame ($7.00) is $19.00, okonomiyaki fries ($8.00) plus potato salad ($7.00) is $15.00, and the two cheapest plates — hiya yakko tofu and kinpira gobo, $4.00 each — put two people at $8.00. Priced off Afuri's own menu.
Israeli-Mediterranean on SE Taylor, and the start of the menu is where two people eat: za'atar fried almonds and warm Castelvetrano olives are $9.00 each, so two plates come to $18.00, and house-made pickles ($8.00) with lemon zest fries ($9.00) lands at $17.00. Everything past that climbs fast — the dips are $15–$18, chicken shawarma is $21.00 and the hanger steak $36.00. Priced off the restaurant group's own menu page.
Tacos are priced individually and the cheap end is genuinely cheap: calabacitas $4.50, tinga de pollo $4.75, carnitas $5.25, carne asada and cochinita pibil $5.00. Two each of the two cheapest is $18.50 — and this kitchen adds a stated 5% “Cocina Feliz” living-wage charge to every check, which takes the real total to $19.43. Still inside, and printed here because a surcharge you find out about at the table is not a deal.
Street tacos are $3.50 flat — and so are the vegan and veggie ones, which is why this Division Street taqueria is claimed by the carnitas crowd and the vegan crowd alike. Four tacos, two each, is $14.00; five is $17.50; four plus a soda still comes in around $16. Priced off the restaurant's own smartonlineorder ordering page, the one its site links to.
The Foster-Powell Vietnamese bakery — house-baked baguettes, and a pastry case worth the detour. Every banh mi on the board is flat-priced at $8.99, so two people eat for $17.98. The badge stays amber on sourcing alone: that figure comes from a directory listing rather than a page the bakery controls, because its own site publishes hours and photographs and no prices at all. The number is almost certainly right; it just is not owner-published.
Portland's densest stretch of Chinese, Vietnamese and Cantonese kitchens, and the best per-dollar eating in the city — dim sum here is still under $7 a plate. One card so far, and that is a coverage gap rather than a verdict on the corridor: the only other 82nd spot we priced, Pho Kim, turned out to charge $22.50 a bowl.
🥟✓ verified
HK Cafe
Three Dim Sum Plates · $19.85 for two
Cart-service Cantonese dim sum on 82nd, and the per-plate math is the best on this page: Shrimp Dumplings and Steamed BBQ Pork Buns are $6.95, Radish Cake and Deep Fried Pork Dumplings $5.95, chicken feet and taro dumplings $6.50. Three plates for two people is $19.85; two plates is $13.90. Read off the restaurant's own ordering page.
Past 100th Avenue the prices drop again: a whole cheese pizza for $12.99, $9.00 sandwiches, and a Salvadoran pupuseria that graduated from a cart to a storefront.
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Chezee Pizza
Whole Cheese Pizza · $12.99 for two
A whole cheese pizza is $12.99 out on SE Stark — pepperoni and sausage are $13.99, and the Lebanese side of the menu puts manaeech flatbreads at $9.99. A complete dinner for two on one order, with change. Priced off its own Slice ordering page.
The 122nd Avenue parlour is better value on its sandwich board than its pizza board: BBQ Beef is $9.00, ham and roast beef $8.50, the Noble Man and the Pizzawich $9.50 — so two people eat for $17.00–$19.00. A whole #22 pizza is $14.50 if you would rather share a pie. Priced off its own Slice ordering page.
A Salvadoran favourite that graduated from a cart to a storefront out at 146th, hand-patting pupusas to order and serving the curtido free. Pupusas run $3.25–$4.50 depending on filling, with the standard ones around $3.50, so five across two people comes to roughly $17.50. It stays amber because there is no owner website at all — no site, no ordering page, nothing the business itself publishes — so the price comes from menu photos and a local write-up. Worth a call to pin the exact figure.
Two cards, because two is what we could price — and one of them is a Portland original: Pizzicato has been making pizza here since 1989. The other national value menus almost certainly clear the line too, but those brands publish no per-store pricing readable from their own sites, and this page would rather run short than card a guess.
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Pizzicato Pizza
Small 10" Just Cheese · $13.50 for two
Born in Portland in 1989 and still a Northwest chain rather than a national one. A small 10-inch Just Cheese is $13.50 — a whole pie for two with change — and breadsticks are $6.75. Note the paninis: $11.00 each and they come with a salad or chips, which is a good lunch but $22.00 for two. Priced off Pizzicato's own menu; Portland stores include NW 10th, NE Fremont, SE Bybee and SE Division.
One 11" Pizza Split Two Ways · $15.29, unlimited toppings
MOD fast-fires an 11-inch build-your-own pizza in about three minutes, and the model is one price however many of the 40-plus toppings go on it. The 11-inch MOD-size reads $15.29 at the NE Halsey store on MOD's own ordering system — $7.65 a head split two ways — and the salad MOD itself labels “Mega (Feeds 2)” is $16.54, which is dinner for both of you in one order. Two 6-inch minis with cheese are $16.58 if you each want your own. The trap is drinks: two 16 oz fountains add $7.18 and put the loaded 11-inch at $22.47. MOD prices by store, so confirm at yours — across the cities checked the same pizza runs $11.89 to $16.59.
Two medium two-topping pizzas at $6.99 each = $13.98 on the Mix & Match deal, read off Domino's own deals page. The locator confirms stores across the city — SE Division, SE 122nd, SW 4th and SW Barbur among them. Carryout pricing; delivery is a different number.