Cheap Eats: Ingles

The Ingles grocery store just down the street from Pine Lake offers lunch seven days a week and breakfast Monday through Saturday for ridiculously low prices. Breakfast costs less than four dollars, and lunch less than five.

Breakfast consists of scrambled eggs with or without cheese, grits, bacon or salmon patty, and a biscuit.

Lunch is a meat and two vegetables or three- or four-vegetable plates. Several times a month one of the lunches is on special, as above.

Lunch meats include fried chicken, chicken fingers, spaghetti, meat loaf, liver, and fish. Vegetables include macaroni and cheese, green beats, mixed vegetables, pinto beans, limas, black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and the most delicious collard greens on earth. Lunches come with a choice of roll or corn bread.

Portions are more than ample.

I buy breakfast on occasion and lunch at least twice a month.It costs less than it would to buy the raw ingredients. Most of the time I go with the vegetable platter.

I can't say enough about the collard greens. Ordinarily I don't eat them, but I usually get a double portion. They're popular with other folks, too, so I go early to be sure they've not run out.

I'm not sure what time breakfast is set out, but it's gone by 9:30 am. Lunch is served from about 11:45  am (the time varies a bit) and is running out by 2 pm.

If the time windows work for you, and if you're on a budget, you can't do better than lunch at Ingles.