The idea of taking the family out to eat sounds great for many. No cooking, no dishes, and a little time together outside the house. But the check can take a bite out of the fun.
These days, eating out for a family of five can easily approach car payment territory. Across the United States, the average cost for eating out was 3.5% higher in September 2026 than it was the same time last year earlier. According to a National Restaurant Association survey, Americans are likely eating out less because of those skyrocketing prices. About 45% of consumers said they were spending less at full-service restaurants over the past year.
Families still need to prioritize convenience sometimes, but is a $10 meal out even possible anymore? Blas Peña is proving it is. He’s asking Texans to help put those meals on the map—literally—with a website that’s plotting where to get cheap meals across the state.
Think Waze, but for food
Peña, a Laredo native now living in San Antonio, is the founder of Oolayum (pronounced “ooh-la-yum”), a new website where people can share meals and prices they’ve found at local restaurants.
He started the project focusing on South Texas, recalling so many mom and pop restaurants that offered delicious homestyle meals for a fraction of the price of a large chain.
He confirmed interest after he posted about the project on Reddit, where people in the Rio Grande Valley were among the first to begin adding meals and prices to the thread. Even though the project started in RGV, it’s growing. Listings now include Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and outside of Texas, like Arizona, California, and even Mexico.
Think about the last time someone recommended a restaurant to you. Maybe it was a coworker who knew where to find that great salisbury steak, or a friend who pointed you toward a little taqueria you’d never noticed. Oolayum is built around a similar idea, except the recommendations are shared online and have to fall within a specific price range.
“There (are) a lot of good local spots, especially in South Texas, that you only know about from a local, word of mouth,” Peña said.
Peña compares the platform to Waze, the navigation app where drivers share what they’re seeing on the road. On Oolayum, contributors, whom Peña calls “explorers,” share the meals and prices they’ve found, along with photos. Another local user can then confirm a price, giving the listing a “Yum Verified” designation.
The more people participate, the more information diners have to work with and the more thorough the map becomes.
How many $10 meals are actually out there?
Peña says affordable meals are still out there.
A search of the map around Harlingen turned up several options. One listing showed meatloaf and other lunch specials at Lonnie’s Down Home Restaurant for $8.99. Another showed enchiladas at El Rancho Restaurant for $8.99.
If you live in Austin, Shopper’s Food Mart Eatery shows a grilled chicken tenders burger listed for $5.70 and a pulled pork sandwich for $7.
In Dallas, the site listed shrimp ceviche for $14 at Crab Pot Boil House & Oyster Bar.
Diners can filter for meals under $10, $15, or $20, though what appears in each area depends on the data people have shared.Because the map relies on contributions, fewer inexpensive listings in a city don’t necessarily mean affordable meals aren’t there—they may simply not have been added yet.
Peña said he wants Oolayum to focus on local restaurants rather than chains. He hopes people will use it to find the taquerias, food trucks, and family-owned places they might otherwise pass by.
And as a dad of two, he understands why an affordable meal matters to families.
“Every once in a while, for our sanity, we gotta get out,” he told me. “And to get out, I wanna make sure that we’re not breaking the bank either.”
Oolayum is very new—it’s only been up and running for about a month. Its user base is small, but Peña hopes the concept attracts new contributors quickly.
Peña’s ambitions go far beyond Texas. In fact, he hopes to go global! For now, the question is how many people will contribute—and keep the information current as menus and prices change.
Peña asks that locally-owned restaurants with great meal deals reach out at hello@oolayum.com to get their menus on the platform. And those that have spots to recommend can start sharing here.
