Talk about a lingering loss leader. Since Costco introduced a 1/4-pound hot dog to its food courts in 1985, the price has not budged from $1.50. And this includes a 20-ounce soda and refill, if you’re into that much sugar.
Still, where else can you find an enduring bargain of an all-beef or polish sausage dog, lathered with all the trimmings, for a handful of change? While the price of a meal out has risen 20 or 30 per cent at most places in recent years, the Costco hot dog price has survived pandemics and high inflation unscathed.
The only thing that’s changed is the self-serve kiosk
My Costco food court in southwest Calgary has seen a few recent changes, most noticeably a self-serve kiosk and a smaller menu. But you can still find hunger-busting bargains like chicken strips and fries ($6.99), poutine ($5.99) or pepperoni pizza slices ($2.59). No salads or vegetables that I could see.
But every now and then, I like to indulge in nostalgia and a little meal that costs me all of $1.50. Even if its consumed mere minutes after I’ve dropped $150 or $200 on all those Costco deals. As I like to say, you can go broke saving money here.
Bean Brokers is a cozy coffee shop in Olds, Alberta
Here’s a clever way to find a good, substantial lunch in Calgary for less than $10. Get out of Calgary!
Okay, it’s illogical. But the math works when we gather, for a cousins’ reunion, in Olds, an agricultural town of 9,000 an hour’s drive north of Calgary off the QE 2.
It’s kind of hard to read the metal menu board at Bean Brokers, a cozy coffee shop where we meet. But I’m nonetheless rubbing my eyes in disbelief at the prices.
These days, I’m used to paying $12 and up for a decent sandwich in Calgary. Here, I’m only being charged $8 for a substantial grilled turkey panini with pesto. A first-rate breakfast sandwich is about the same price. And the big mugs of coffee are good, too.
A fine turkey panini for only $8
In fact, we’re having such a good time, it’s hard to get the 10 of us out the door. But off we must go for an early-season tour of the extensive botanic gardens and wetlands at Olds College.
The college opened in 1913 and offers extensive agricultural and horticultural education. One of its programs is learning how to make craft beer. How good is that? The good news is there’s a retail store, where imbibing members of the public can mix and match from about half a dozen styles of beer.
Stocking up on student-crafted brews at Olds College Brewery
Finally, the college has a national meat training centre, with again a retail store where you can buy fine, reasonably priced steaks, roasts and sausages.
And retail meats
Did I mention, Olds is only an hour north of Calgary?
Sunterra’s breakfast sandwich a delicious, made-to-order bargain
Here’s a quick hack for finding lunch in Calgary that’s under $10. It’s called breakfast.
Not that it’s a slam-dunk strategy, not when I’ve recently spent more than $20 twice for a highfalutin Calgary breakfast. But a “breakfast burrito” is generally going to be cheaper than a regular burrito, just because of expectations.
Nowhere is this labelling more apparent than the breakfast sandwich: a layering of egg, melted cheddar and meat on a biscuit. You may have first experienced it as an Egg McMuffin.
A regular lunch sandwich, while generally more substantial, will likely cost you upwards of $12. By comparison, it’s not hard to find a decent, sufficient breakfast sandwich in Calgary for considerably less than $10.
For my penny-pinching money, the best of the bunch for price and quality is Sunterra Market‘s biscuit breakfast sandwich, a hefty concoction featuring a house-made biscuit and cured ham. It’s made to order, meaning I get to watch a chef prepare it in a little sauté pan and slide it onto a plate about three minutes after I order it.
The price: $5.79. Can’t beat that.
Oh, Sunterra does offer some other killer lunch deals that put the lie to my earlier claims. For instance, you can get a prepared, pastrami sandwich on ancient grain bread for $8.50 and a hefty tandoori chicken wrap for $9.29.
The prepared sandwiches and wraps are also a bargain
Sunterra Market 2536 Kensington Road NW and numerous other Calgary locations Daily 8 am-7 pm 403-685-1553
An overflowing tostada for only $5 at Sabores Mexican Cuisine in Calgary Farmers’ Market West
Here’s one way to get lunch for less than $10: Order an appetizer.
It’s obviously not a full meal. But if you’ve got a smaller appetite or are seeking a snack, an appetizer might be just what you’re looking for.
That’s certainly the case when I dig into a scrumptious tostada at Sabores Mexican Cuisine in Calgary Farmers’ Market west location. For only $5, I get a large, crispy corn tortilla loaded with chicken, beans, shredded lettuce, cheese and crema. Throw in some sides of hot sauce and guacamole, and you’ve got a big, open-faced taco.
A bit messy to eat, with plastic knife and fork or your hands, but that’s what napkins are for. Heck, you can order two of these tostadas for a full-sized, $10 lunch.
Sabores has a full range of Mexican dishes
Sabores also offers a short list of Mexican breakfasts for $10 or less: burritos, chilaquiles and huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs with sausage and beans). My lovely, huevos rancheros is a big, soupy plate of over-easy eggs, pureed beans, corn tortillas, side cups of spicy salsa and cooling guacamole, along with corn chips for scooping. Good stuff that won’t break the bank.
There’s two over easy eggs lurking in this $10 huevos rancheros
My only, mild, complaint is the amount of disposable dishes and cutlery. Though that’s true of most food courts.
Sabores Mexican Cuisine Calgary Farmers’ Market West 25 Greenbriar Drive NW Wednesday to Sunday, opens at 9 am, breakfast till 11 am 403-240-9113
In our post-pandemic world, it’s hard to find any Calgary lunch stop offering a worthy meal for less than $10. But here goes, starting with To Me Vietnamese Submarine, a little drive-through kiosk on Calgary’s busy Macleod Trail. In three years, prices have shot up from $6 to $9, but it’s still a bargain for a honking big, scrumptious chicken sate sub, delivered in two minutes and polished off almost as fast in the parking lot.
My new backpacking guidebook, hot off the Amazon press
After six-plus years, several thousand kilometres on foot and countless hours chained to a computer keyboard, I’ve finally finished my latest (last?) guidebook, Best Backpacks in the Canadian Rockies.
Random camping, Stone Mountain Provincial Park, northern B.C.
The book provides all the information you need to plan for and undertake more than 50 gorgeous backpacking trips, mostly in the Canadian Rockies. They range from world-famous classics—like Jasper National Park’s Skyline Trail and Kootenay’s Rockwall—to those no one’s heard of, like southern Alberta’s Cabin Ridge or Banff’s Sawback Range Loop. They range from one-night trips, especially for families and novices, to week-long treks featuring long stretches of trailless travel. They range, geographically, from the Montana border to northern British Columbia, where the Rockies’ peters out.
Window Mountain Lake, High Rock Trail, southern Rockies
So why this book? After completing the summitting of all the 50-plus 11,000-foot peaks in the Canadian Rockies (and writing a history and guidebook of those 11,000ers), I found myself doing more and more backpacking and far less mountaineering. The good news is the backpacks took me through equally spectacular terrain, without the toil and exposure to loose rock and receding glaciers of going up big peaks.
Opal Range Traverse, Kananaskis Country
The other reasons for embracing backpacking are tied to two trends. One is the widespread availability of lightweight gear (tents, sleeping bags, packs… you name it), that sheds some 10 pounds off the load you’re carrying and puts a spring in your step, even on a week-long journey.
The other trend (partly tied to this lightweight revolution), is the booming popularity of long-distance treks like the American Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails and the Alberta-B.C. Great Divide Trail, which take months to organize and complete. Which got me thinking: Why not divert some of that long-distance focus to the multitude of gorgeous, much shorter trips in our mountain backyards? Especially the many trips that don’t require booking six months in advance; just show up and go.
Monkman Trail, northern B.C.
I’m probably most proud of the routes in this book that are off the beaten path— in places like the southern Rockies, including Alberta’s magnificent Kananaskis Country, and northern B.C.’s Monkman and Stone Mountain Provincial Parks.
Incredible line of hoodoos, Wokkpash Circuit, northern B.C.
Will a more detailed description of such places make them more crowded? Perhaps. But I like to think we need as many enthusiastic backpackers as we can to advocate for preserving these special landscapes.
And I believe some marvelous destinations will never attract much attention. Like an off-piste trip this summer, one valley removed from a popular highway, where we saw one other group in two days.
Panther Lake, Sawback Range Loop, Banff National Park
Best Backpacks in the Canadian Rockies is self-published and is available online through Amazon.ca (paperback) and Kindle, Apple Books and Kobo (all ebooks).
