Room only USA - food tips needed!

[Jazzmin]

We are going to California at Easter. We are staying room only for 2 weeks. Breakfast at the hotels is about 20 dollars each, I have 2 teenagers so they would pay full rate which will soon add up. I was thinking of packing cereal bars etc for a quick breakfast on some days ( obviously can buy from supermarkets there, but particularly thinking about start of holiday as we get our bearings.)
I have never been on this sort of holiday before - does it get time consuming constantly eating out? Do people eat out 3 meals a day? I have budgeted for lots of eating out, but not 80 dollars a day just for breakfast!

Any other tips on what to take which will travel well, or ways to manage having no self catering facilities much appreciated! ( I am really looking forward to the sightseeing, and love eating out, but don’t want to kick myself for not thinking of something obvious!)

Previously we've just been to a supermarket and bought cereal bars / pastry and fruit and that in our room for breakfast. There might be a fridge in your room also.

Lunch - most supermarkets we went to in California had sushi, or buy rolls and ham / prawns and eat on the go.

Dinner, eating at restaurants.

The more you avoid "sitting in" places, the more you avoid inflated prices and service charge.

California's amazing! Enjoy :)

You can get much cheaper breakfasts (coffee, juice, bagel , oatmeal) at loads of places, coffee shops, cafés, fast food restaurants etc. Probably lots of healthy options too as it's California .
And yes you can get muffins in large packs at supermarkets (recommend the raisin bran ones) as well as pastries, prepared fruit, fruit and cottage cheese platters. There should be loads of choice!

Does your room have tea/coffee making facilities inor a small kitchenette?
We've stayed in lots of hotels that had eg a coffee maker, microwave, and fridge in a corner or alcove. Especially as hotel rooms tend to be quite a bit bigger than in Europe.
What you might find difficult to get hold or buy is real, unflavoured, ground coffee. Teabags and instant coffee are everywhere of course.

Much of America is set up as if no-one has kitchens. You can eat out for under $5/head/meal if you want to, ask the whatever-they-call-concierges for local places.

Your room will almost certainly have a fridge you can use, and probably a percolator coffee pot. No kettle - they'll likely expect you to use the damn percolator for boiling water! So take a little travel kettle.

The hotel breakfasts, if you do indulge once or twice, will be massive and will make lunch more or less unnecessary, depending on your appetites.

Sandwiches are large to enormous.
I would also say that when eating out, one starter is usually big enough for two. And we rarely had enough room for dessert. We are most definitely not light eaters, btw.. ☺️

Pizza places and other 'takeout' restaurants will also deliver to your hotel room.

Coffee shops and supermarkets will be cheaper than eating in the hotel.

Places like Walmart do sandwiches that are a bloomer loaf with salad and various fillings. You can feed the family for a couple of days with something that! Prepared salads can easily feed a couple of people. Things like rotisserie chicken and deli salads are available in lots of places.

Unless you are sitting down to three courses every mealtime every day it should be too time consuming, but eating out is one of the pleasures of a holiday for me. In a lot of places, you may want to go for just entrees (main courses) as portion sizes can be huge.

We stayed in lots of hotels and they all had a Krueger machine (like a Tassimo type thing) with the worlds worst coffee pods to use in it! We ended up buying a kettle (luckily I’d taken tea bags!) and carting it around with us from place to place.

We went with a two stop strategy - big breakfast, then early dinner. It meant we had room for a little snack/cake etc as well, but everywhere was really expensive so do be prepared that eating out will cost you a chunk. Supermarket shop makes sense if you have a decent sized fridge in the room.

Have a great time! We loved it there and will def go back.

I went to California last year. We only needed 2 meals per day, we are big eaters yet still found the portions huge.

Fab suggestions, thanks. We do have big appetites so are all looking forward to the enormous portions of food... will order a travel kettle now- haven’t needed one for years!

It's a Keurig coffee machine - I was looking at Krueger for ages trying to work out what was wrong! I was disappointed by coffee in the States. It's no wonder they give free top ups, it's so bloody weak. You can buy all sorts of coffee pods in drugstores, where you can also get ready made sandwiches, salads, etc. CVS and Walgreen's are everywhere. I forgot about drugstores when I posted before.

When we last went to the US I booked places that offered 'free' breakfast. Often in a smaller motel type place that meant a pastry or doughnut from the local supermarket, but they usually have cereal and packets of oatmeal too. There's usually free coffee and water available in the lobby in most hotels.

If you're near a Dennys head there for breakfast, we did this staying in Vegas - approx $10 a head but would eat there maybe 9:30 and not eat again until late teatime (maybe a snack but nothing 'proper') Portions were huge and tasty too.

Denny's is very good value and quality for a chain. They do lots of meal deals where a drink is included, etc. and they have healthier options.

Another vote for Denny's, they have a $2/4/6/8 dollar menu for breakfast. It's cheap and cheerful and big portions! Often no need for lunch.
They have subway over there too which is useful for a cheap out and about lunch.
Taco Bell do a really cheap meal deal too (I can't remember how cheap it it was under $5).
One tip around alcohol... make sure you have ID they ask EVERYONE in the supermarkets - even my 65year old Dad. They refused to serve him one time as I had carried the alcohol to the till point and didn't have my ID (I'm 37, and don't look younger!) also don't let the kids carry the alcohol for you, we got in trouble for this too.

I have teenagers with giant appetites too. Chains like Denny's, Sizzler, Ponderosa, are your best bet. Not fine dining but some have buffets and everything is fresh. Lots of branches of Subway too that do foot long sandwiches. Have a great time

We always head to a Denny’s as well! Great value breakfast which will fill us up for the entire day. In the evening we head to a Shoney’s or similar-they do an all you can eat buffet (very cheaply) which is quite nice.

Hotels usually have kettles if you ask. They call them tea kettles. They’ve always provided one when I’ve asked in the US. And as PP have said, there’s always been a fridge too. If you ask in good time, they can usually sort you a room with one out. I’ve always found US hotels really accommodating.

Fantastic tips, thanks. I am officially over-excited now....

If you are a tea drinker take teabags.

Next time I go to the states I'm going to spend an entire day looking around Trader Joes and Wegmans. Amazing food shops

What you might find difficult to get hold or buy is real, unflavoured, ground coffee. Teabags and instant coffee are everywhere of course.

I am American living in the US and I have stayed in a lot of hotels in my time. I have never seen instant coffee in a hotel room in the US.

If the hotel has a Keurig, the K-Cups might not be all that good. But there are excellent ones available in supermarkets. I recommend Peet's Major Dickason.

Seneca - I wasn't talking about instant coffee in hotels, I meant unflavoured ground coffee (not instant and not pods) for the filter machines which we found difficult to get hold of in standard supermarkets; we could find hazelnut flavour, mocha (not Yemeni mocha) cinnamon, vanilla and various others. Some were sweetened.
But coffees like Kenya AA, Jamaica blue mountain or Colombian - not so much. Or even a pack of blended roast and ground.
However many, many brands of instant coffee seemed to be available in the same supermarkets.

I would invest in a good breakfast, then dont have to worry about lunch so much. I dont even remember our lunches when we did a road trip in California,
Just had big breakfast at IHOP or local diner etc and then grabbed a sandwich for lunch and a nice meal in the evening

Auntie Oxident not sure where you were shopping, but unflavored ground coffee is readily available everywhere I have lived in the US. On the whole, Americans don't drink a lot of instant coffee.

We’ve got the same issue.Do those Peets pods fit in the Keurig machines? Silly question but do hotel rooms have mugs/ cups in them as standard? We’re taking bowls and camping cutlery so we can buy cereal. Which is a good suoermarket that sells non sugar loaded cereal etc? Beyond excited to get s snoop round Trader Joes.