The Best Cheap Family Eats in Omaha (Under $10 a Plate)

Some weeks the grocery money's gone by Thursday and everybody's still hungry Friday night. Been there. The good news is Omaha is full of cheap, honest, family-run places where you can feed the whole crew without cracking twenty bucks a head, and most of them beat anything with a drive-thru. Here's the under-ten-dollars-a-plate list we keep going back to.

Start with tacos. California Tacos & More over on California Street has been an Omaha institution for decades, and the thing to order is the puffy-shell California Taco, a few bucks of pure comfort. A couple of those plus a side keeps you under budget, and the kids love the crunch.

For something a little different, Greek Islands on Center Street has been family-run since 1983, and a gyro there runs around eight or nine dollars for a genuinely filling plate. It's a sit-down, but a cheap one, and the portions send everybody home full.

If you've never had it, Time Out Foods up on North 30th Street does secret-recipe fried chicken that people in Omaha have driven across town for since long before it was trendy. A chicken dinner can land under eight dollars. Fair warning, it's popular and the hours are limited, so plan around it.

Pizza is one of the best values going for a hungry family. Big Fred's out near 120th and Pacific has been a from-scratch family pizza place for sixty years, and one of their pies feeds a whole table for less than most sit-down spots. For slices you build yourself, Zio's Pizzeria started right here in 1985 and has a spot down in the Old Market plus a couple more around town, where a big New-York slice and a drink is a whole cheap lunch a kid thinks is a treat.

For breakfast any time of day, Louie M's Burger Lust on Vinton Street in south Omaha is a beloved old diner where a big plate of eggs or a hand-built burger stays right around ten bucks. It's got real character, walls covered in stuff, and kids eat it up.

And you can't do a cheap-eats list in Nebraska without the local heroes. Don & Millie's is the employee-owned Omaha original where the Cheese Frenchee, a deep-fried cheese sandwich, is a rite of passage, and the burger-and-onion-rings combos land near nine dollars. If you want a real hole-in-the-wall, the little Vietnamese Restaurant on Jones Street near the Furniture Mart does big bowls of pho for under ten, though it's cash-and-Facebook simple, so just show up hungry.

A couple of budget tips from a parent who's done this a lot. Split plates. Portions at most of these places are big enough that two little kids can share one order and a side. Go at off hours, right at five, and you skip the wait and sometimes catch a lunch price. And keep a running list in your phone of the ones near your part of town, because the whole game is not deciding while everybody's already cranky.

That's a full week of cheap Omaha dinners without ever touching a national chain. If you're really watching the budget with kids in tow, grab our free Kids Eat Free guide for the nights somebody eats for nothing, and pair a cheap dinner with a free afternoon at one of Omaha's splash pads for a genuinely good family day that costs almost nothing.

Prices creep and hours change, so treat these as ballpark and call if you're driving far.

Check out all their menus:

California Tacos & More Menu→ Greek Islands Menu→ Time Out Foods Menu→ Big Fred's Menu→ Zio's Pizzeria Menu→ Louie M's Burger Lust Menu→ Don & Millie's Menu→