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This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here.
You don’t need to sit down at one of the Bay Area’s posh and trendy temples of fine dining to know that eating out in the year 2026 is too damn expensive. These days, even the most generic fast food might cost $50 or $60 to feed a family of four, and buying groceries to cook at home is an increasingly fraught and overwhelming expense.
Thankfully, the high-end California cuisine restaurant isn’t the only hallmark of the Bay Area food scene — there’s also the neighborhood taco truck, noodle counter, bánh mì shop and casual takeout dim sum deli. In every city in the Bay, these essential restaurants are still feeding the people, often at a shockingly inexpensive price point. You just need to know which ones are actually delicious…