Crafty Beans has 2 locations in Bristol, both situated within a stone’s throw of one another, but here I’ll speak about the St Nicks Location as I think it’s a uniquely brilliant spot. St Nicks Market is notorious for it’s cheap eats, and in this list, I could have talked about Bristol giants like Matina and Low n Slow, which tend to have queue’s stretching and bending round half the market walkway. Crafty Beans stands out amongst as a significantly more low-key spot, with seating, which is a rare commodity in the busy market.

Situated between Eat a Pitta’s stall and Chilli Daddy’s noodle stall, you’re sat on some wooden benches just off the side of the market’s main walkway. It’s a lovely spot, with the ornate glass ceiling and arcade arches fully visible from your little wooden seat, giving you a sense of respite in the otherwise busy market.

More than this though, the food is cheap, delicious, and uncomplicated, a theme that’ll run between all these spots. Quite simply, Crafty Beans does breakfasts simply, but with immense effect for a great price point. I tend to go for their Veggie Breakfast bap, which comes at under £5 for a wonderfully filling bap with sausages, egg and hash browns, cheddar cheese and any choice of sauce. It’s this simple, delicious, and uncomplicated approach that makes Craft Beans so attractive amongst the hustle and bustle of foods and people in St Nicks. Their other breakfast offerings come in equally cheap, their coffee is brilliant, and their cakes, while on the pricier side, are one of their USP’s and rightfully so because they’re equally fantastic. Check out this spot in favour of the more well-known names in St Nicks Market, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

As mentioned prior, this list makes considerations that go beyond culinary complexity, and seeks to find a happy medium with foods in Bristol. To make this list then, a venue that provides convenient, affordable food in the centre of Bristol for a good price point is a sure contender. City Café Kebab is one of many Kebab vans situated in the City Centre, with this one being smack dab in the middle of Bristol, opposite the hippodrome and next to an imposing statue of Neptune, who stands guard behind the kebab van.

Initially, I believed that my love of this venue emerged from pure personal biases, with my introduction to it being after a 3am closing shift I’d worked at a bar on Corn Street. A colleague at the time led me to the end of Corn Street and gestured to the van, which before its Las Vegas-esque renovation, was a simple blue van Kebab van with white lettering. This colleague introduced me to the owner and some of the workers who he knew by name and gave them a familiar handshake, this customer-server relationship being integral for the city’s night food trucks, who must contend with all the character that a night of drinking and debauchery brings out. He told me to opt for something simple, Chips, Cheese, and Curry Sauce, more a staple of the midlands, but something that he swore by here, at the time the dish was £3.50, having risen since to £4.50. Upon my first bite, I’d have sworn I had some sort of re-awakening, finally, I saw why this anglified version of a Chinese curry sauce swept large parts of the nation. Whether it was because I’d been on my feet for 10 hours, or the massive portion size, or the wonderful balance between gooey cheese, spicy, salty curry sauce, and soft yet crunchy chips all served steaming hot with a fork jammed in the top of the contained, I fell in love. I’ve been in a relationship with this kebab van for the best part of 3 years, and we’re going steady. I’ve introduced her to all my friends, and they’re happy for me, City Café Kebab is an experience, and is the most consistent and delicious food on offer late at night in the City Centre.

Go for the cheap and nasty (in the best way possible) food, stay for the atmosphere, the strange characters who’ll drop their chips in a drunken haze and stare doe eyed at the seagulls that swarm their post-clubbing sustenance. In Summer too there’ll often be someone playing guitar just by the van, it’s a wonderfully chaotic atmosphere, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Marco’s Olive Branch is a lovely restaurant in an unassuming spot given that it’s damn central in the grand scheme of Bristol. The restaurant itself sits amongst the rows of office buildings in Redcliffe, along the road leading from the Centre to Temple Meads. Offering Sicilian fare, the thing that drew me into the restaurant was the thing that continues to pull me in there when I’m seeking good food in the Centre, and that’s their Pizza’s. Now, Bristol is a city where competition between Pizza restaurants is a serious affair, with different Pizza joints drawing in Customers with Sourdough, innovative approaches to pizza, and importantly a good atmosphere within the restaurant. In this respect, Marco’s is lower key and reminds me of a cosy-small town Italian restaurant, but if they’re competing with other pizza places in Bristol, they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeve.

To start, takeaway pizza at Marco’s stands at £7.95, and that’s for any 3 toppings, with a damn good selection too. Now this alone would draw a lot of people in, and rightfully so, it’s a damn bargain in the grand scheme of Bristol. But more that that, the style of pizza at Marco’s is more reminiscent of what one might find at pizza places in Italy, the base being non-sourdough, and having a hefty dose of polenta on the bottom. Once again, Marco’s leaning into this simpler style isn’t a bad thing, and for people who might want a change from all the sourdough pizza that has swept the market. Not to mention their ingredients are top quality.

Speaking of lower key spots, the lovely Temple Gardens sits just next to the restaurant, making it the perfect spot to eat your takeaway pizza. The park itself is packed with history, and even if it’s peeing it down with rain, you can take shelter in the leaning tower of Bristol, a little portion of the ruined Temple church, that’s covered and has stone seats in it. So enjoy cheap Sicilian style pizza while sheltering in a bombed out knights templar church, or basking in the sun. Marco’s is a brilliant spot.

Putting Wetherspoons in a guide to eating out in Bristol is practically a sentence to the social media guillotine. It stands against a lot of the esprit d’indépendance of Bristol, and for those more savvy at ‘food influencing’ in Bristol, the generally dingy appearance and 8am pint drinkers don’t exactly appeal to a marketable aesthetic. This all being said, I intended to offer a guide to cheap eating in Bristol, and while it’s well known that Wetherspoons offers cheap food, they go beyond that with their ‘Top Plates, Low Rates’ offer. This, unbeknownst to some, is only available in the Clifton branches of Wetherspoons, this being the Berkeley and the W.G. Grace. I tend to opt for the former, given that it’s got a bit of a nicer interior, formerly being Georgian tearooms, and on a sunny day the Wills Memorial building provides quite good eye candy if you’re sitting by the window

Onto the food then, Wetherspoons breakfast is almost a rite of national passage at this point, and at under £4 for a full fry up, you might feel a sense of guilty pleasure while scoffing down a greasy breakfast at the biggest chain pub in the country. I’m young, I’m broke, and the breakfast fills me up for more than half the day, those alone as criteria place it quite highly in my rankings of places to eat in Bristol.

Flour House is possibly the antithesis to the Wetherspoons Breakfast, being hearty, occasionally healthy and homemade, and to the Wetherspoons aesthetic, favouring pastel colours and plants over wall scones and pattern carpets. Flour House is by no means an unknown spot in Bristol, nor is it lacking in recognition, having been voted Café of the Year for 2 years running. And this is deserved, Flour House offers an excellent selection of Café style foods that breed innovation with simplicity, affordability, presentation, and taste. I love this Café, and the service is impeccable, friendly and relaxed.

The menu itself deserves its own article, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll confine my love to a few dishes that are simple concepts done incredibly. The first of these is their ‘Ultimate Sandwich’ coming in at £6.50, with regular and Vegan Bacon available for another £2. The Ultimate Sandwich is really the star of the show, featuring on the Café’s T-Shirt/Merch, and it’s in essence, a hash brown sandwich if it were given a culinary makeover. Lovely little hashbrown coins are accompanied by a garlic aioli, chilli jam, roasted cherry tomatoes and lambs’ lettuce. All of this is served between some hefty slices of sourdough, and for the price point, it’s brilliantly filling, and just damn delicious, it really needs to be seen to be believed.

As for a more unsung hero on their menu, the porridge they offer is fantastic, coming in at around £6 it may put off anyone who is familiar with the dish as a cheap breakfast staple. But don’t be put off! Flour house turn this dish into something incredible, currently the offering they’ve got is a carrot cake style porridge, which is entirely vegan, and is the best tasting porridge you’ll ever have, and the portions are crazy. Accompanied by fresh fruit and a whole host of other toppings, it’s worth trying.

Flour House may put more sceptical types off, as upon first glance, the place appeals to a highly instagrammable aesthetic, which certainly isn’t a bad thing, but typically is accompanied by higher prices, and less quality in favour of that aesthetic. But Flour House sacrifices nothing for quality, it’s a brilliant place, with friendly owners, fantastic food and a great atmosphere, it deserves all the praise it gets, and rounds off my choices of the best cheap places to eat in Bristol.

Bristol has an excellent offering when it comes to food, just make sure to make your own judgements, and seek out what you enjoy. Don’t follow the crowd, and seek out your own happy medium.