How much do restaurants cost in Yucatan: Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Merida, etc?

In Cancun, prices tend to be driven by US resort prices. I can give you the prices for other places here in Yucatan.   For an expensive meal at a fairly new restaurant, I paid US $15.63 or 250 pesos for a really fabulous steak, and that was the full meal. That is expensive in this area.

 

Another advantage of living inland, away from Cancun, is that the cost of living here is pretty inexpensive. For $8.75 (140 Mexican pesos), I recently ate at...

In Cancun, prices tend to be driven by US resort prices. I can give you the prices for other places here in Yucatan.   For an expensive meal at a fairly new restaurant, I paid US $15.63 or 250 pesos for a really fabulous steak, and that was the full meal. That is expensive in this area.

 

Another advantage of living inland, away from Cancun, is that the cost of living here is pretty inexpensive. For $8.75 (140 Mexican pesos), I recently ate at another restaurant where I had a salad, a choice of French fries and I really had a nice filet mignon wrapped in bacon. It was so delicious and tender. This particular restaurant has about five salads and about four kinds of pasta, which are sold at $5 to $5.60 (80 to 90 pesos) each. I had their spaghetti Bolognese twice and it was excellent. I have had a flank steak that is marinated and grilled for $8.13, which was very good. They have desserts too, for about $3.13 each. Their beers are $1.25 each. 

 

You can also eat at local restaurants. Today, I had a torta, which is a Spanish shredded roast pork and that is a local delicacy. It is basically pork that has been marinated, grilled, and shredded. The cost was around $1.10. That was my lunch – a shredded roasted pork sandwich. It was great!

 

Life is good here. That is why a lot of people are attracted here. You can make the most of your retirement dollar, especially for people who are living more on their Social Security and proceeds of a real estate sale that they banked. The big fear of anybody is outliving his or her resources. You can have a lifestyle here that you clearly can't have in the US, but for far less.

 

( Traditional Mexican food at Akumal Bay Resort restaurant, Cancun, Mexico, pictured.)

This is a pretty broad question but to give you an example, in the local villages such as in Chelem, Dzilam de Bravo, Progreso (the less developed beach areas in the state of Yucatan, north of Merida), etc. you can get a very nice meal between 120 and 140 pesos, which would equate to around US $9 or $10. If you want to go to the city like Merida, and you dine in a 5-star restaurant there, you would be paying US prices. 

 

One of the most famous...

This is a pretty broad question but to give you an example, in the local villages such as in Chelem, Dzilam de Bravo, Progreso (the less developed beach areas in the state of Yucatan, north of Merida), etc. you can get a very nice meal between 120 and 140 pesos, which would equate to around US $9 or $10. If you want to go to the city like Merida, and you dine in a 5-star restaurant there, you would be paying US prices. 

 

One of the most famous restaurants in Merida is called Trotters. Paul Trotter, the owner, owns four restaurants in Merida. Trotters is one of my favorites. I like to go there and get a filet mignon, a bottle of wine, sometimes oysters Rockefeller. For my wife and I to go to Trotters for the evening and have a few cocktails, filet mignon, and Oysters Rockefeller, it will cost around $160, which is about the same price that it would cost in the US in most places. 

 

Some of my favorite food here in Yucatan is street food. They have what is called comida economica, which basically translates to “cheap food.” There is one store down the street here in Chelem where I used to go for breakfast when I lived here. I got scrambled eggs with ham, toast, butter, a full pitcher of orange juice, coffee, a little bit of beans and rice on the side, all for about $3. Here in beach areas around Merida, you could spend $3 and get a good meal. Most of the grocery stores have rotisserie chicken that they sell for around $7 or less, which is very tasty. 

 

The prices of restaurants and food in general differs depending on where you are. If you get away from the tourist zones, then it turns back into “real Mexico,” but if you are anywhere near the tourist areas such as the most popular place in Playa del Carmen (in the state of Quintana Roo, in the much more developed beach areas on the Yucatan Peninsula) called Fifth Avenue, then you’re going to pay tourist prices. By the way, Fifth Avenue is for pedestrians only. There are no cars around there but it has all the shops and malls.  

 

(Doug Willey in a restaurant in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)

If you are going to a restaurant in Celestún (a village in the state of Yucatan of about 7,500 people, mostly locals) , you will get a full chicken dinner composed of chicken, rice, vegetables, and a soda for around US $6. If you go to Merida (a city of over 1 million in the state of Yucatan), you can get a very nice but not extravagant meal for around $9 including your refreshments. Lunch or dinner costs pretty much the same here.

 

We go into the...

If you are going to a restaurant in Celestún (a village in the state of Yucatan of about 7,500 people, mostly locals) , you will get a full chicken dinner composed of chicken, rice, vegetables, and a soda for around US $6. If you go to Merida (a city of over 1 million in the state of Yucatan), you can get a very nice but not extravagant meal for around $9 including your refreshments. Lunch or dinner costs pretty much the same here.

 

We go into the very Mexican restaurants here about twice a month to order Yucatecan food, which usually costs us $8, including drinks. That is good quality food and lots of it. If you go to the same kind of restaurant in Canada, you would spend about 50% more for the same food.

 

You can also go to some restaurants in Merida where you can get three tacos for $3, which is enough to fill you up and you could also go to nice, expensive restaurants in Merida, a nice, high end steak dinner for two people costs about $90. Merida has an extremely large variety of restaurants. Depending on where in Merida you go, food in restaurants could range from $1.50 to $60 per person. Generally speaking the cost of food in restaurants here is less than half the cost as the same type of meal if you were in Canada; sometimes it is even less depending on what food you order.

 

(Restaurant on the beach in Celestun, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)

The cost of restaurants in Yucatan depends on where you eat. There are local Yucatanian restaurants that will normally charge US $5 a head for the food, and a couple of bucks for the drinks, or perhaps a beer. There is also high-end dining in Yucatan that costs $50 - $60 a head, which is in the more tourist areas in downtown Merida. In Playa del Carmen, it’s also very easy to find a $50 - $60 a head per plate.

 

In the state of Yucatan, for $5, you can...

The cost of restaurants in Yucatan depends on where you eat. There are local Yucatanian restaurants that will normally charge US $5 a head for the food, and a couple of bucks for the drinks, or perhaps a beer. There is also high-end dining in Yucatan that costs $50 - $60 a head, which is in the more tourist areas in downtown Merida. In Playa del Carmen, it’s also very easy to find a $50 - $60 a head per plate.

 

In the state of Yucatan, for $5, you can get panuchos, salbutes, sopa de lima, tacos, taquitos, and there’s a local fare in Yucatan that consists of a meat, a bread-type product, whether it be fried or just baked, and a small amount of vegetables, usually something like onions. It’s quite small, and you’ll have two or three of those that would cost you about $5 total.

 

Expats would go to these restaurants in Yucatan if they could find them. Some of these restaurants are off the beaten path, and some of them are more for the locals, because the tourist industry can’t make money at $5 a head, but the local industries can. One of the best things you can do is to get some local knowledge as to where the best places are in Yucatan.  

 

(Salbutes made with turkey, Mexico, pictured.)