It used to be easy as pie to get cheap food in Las Vegas, even pie. The casinos were desperate to get you in, and they happily lost a few bucks on dinner hoping you'd be so full and happy you'd be willing to gamble away your savings. It's not so easy getting free grub anymore. The cheap eats are fewer and farther in between these days, but these tips will keep you and your wallet stuffed full.

The buffets in town are the most obvious place to start, but don't limit yourself. There are plenty of other options that don't include slimy scrambled eggs and corn beef hash unfit for dogs.

Arizona Charlies Decatur and Boulder Highway - Both are cheap buffets, among the lowest prices in town, but trust us when we say you get what you pay for here. If all you want are some eggs and chewy bacon, it's probably a fair deal.

Boulder, Palace, Sunset and Texas Stations - A general rule that works is that any casino ending in Station will have a decent buffet. Most are away from the heavy action of the Strip and downtown, though. These are big buffets with some okay food. It's a good place for dinner, considering the price, but steer clear of their "special" nights where they jerk the price up and serve steak or seafood. The added food usually isn't worth the price hike.

Fiesta Rancho - One of the darn cheapest buffet in town. It's lots of meat and potatos, but a deal.

Gold Coast - Very simple, meat and potatoes fare for a cheap price. the lunch buffet is under $10. Is it good? Well, it's not bad and it's filling.

Green Valley and Red Rock - These two joints are a notch up from the other Station casinos, but have the same owner, and primarily serve the locals. The buffets cost a couple bucks more, but man, oh, man are they good. These are among the ten best in Vegas, but with prices well below the fancypants Strip joints.

Main Street Station - Okay, so it's not the cheapest buffet, but it's good enough to prevent us from finding anything snarky to say. The grub tastes like a million bucks, but the weekend champagne brunch costs about $10 and dinner rings in under $15 usually (except for the fancy-pants seafood). If you go, sneak out some ice cream for us. We'll tell you where to send it.

Orleans - A good buffet for the price. This one is a mile off the Strip, but definitely worth seeking out for dinner, where you can chow down for under $15 most nights, and that usually includes crawdads for you headsuckers. The desserts are, unfortunately, mediocre. No pie there is worth sneaking out in your pants. Trust us on this one, we ruined some perfectly good corduroys.

Sahara - It's not a good buffet, but for dinner it's the cheapest on the Strip. Heck, it's one of the cheapest in town at dinnertime. Don't get suckered into the "champagne brunch" on weekend days. Just wait until after 4 p.m. and pay well under $10 for all you can eat.

Terrible's - The owners must have been thinking of this cheap buffet when they thought up the joint's name. Skip it, even though it's cheap.

The following casinos offer decent deals in their delis. Again, eating these meals is a "caveat emptor" experience. Keep your litigious notions to yourself.

Deli at Golden Gate - Try a satisfying sandwich for about five or six bucks or a complete breakfast (weekdays only) for cheap. Other items on the menu cost a bit more, but are a good value. In the Bay City Diner, there are cheap dinner specials like spaghetti and meatballs and chicken. The formerly-cheap shrimp cocktail is now not cheap, unless you have a slot card here. Then it's still 99 cents.

Gold Spike - The 24-hour restaurant which closes once a year for an hour of cleaning is one of the cheapest places to get food anywhere in the world. The prices and ambience will convince you you're in the Third World. Complete ham or roast beef dinners are about $5. Everything on this menu is budget priced. Full (sort of gross) breakfasts on paper plates are a couple bucks.

Riviera - This king-sized grind joint has a new nickels-only area in the casino. Inside the nickel area called NickelTown they have installed a dirt cheap deli. Dollar hots dogs and $1.50 draft beers are the order of the day. You are cordially invited to jostle with depression-era survivors for the low-budget grub.

Slots-a-Fun - Load up on cheap hot dogs, lousy pizza and cheap beer. They have it all here, and the price is right.

Want to ask your girlfriend to marry you, but wasted too much money at the craps table to afford a fancy ring... or a nice dinner? Try some of these spots. Nothing says romance better than a cheap meal. Look, when we say sit-down, we really mean coffee shop, not gourmet room.

Also, there are a ton of great graveyard deals in Vegas. This list ain't of those. It's of great deals you can get at normal times, which are harder to come by. The Graveyard deals are in the next section.

Arizona Charlie's Decatur and Boulder Highway - Unlike most places in town, which offer only late-night specials, the Sourdough Cafe will give you a plate of steak and eggs 24 hours a day for $3.29. During graveyard, they have a better steak (meaning it comes from a part of the cow you won't be ashamed to eat) for a bit more. This is midnight to 7 a.m., and includes a salad, potato and vegetable.

Binion's - The prime rib dinner is a bit pricey at just under ten bucks, but fat ain't free you know. Up until 11 at night, they also have a steak and lobster dinner for $12. The steak is tough, the lobster sort of small, but it is steak and lobster! There's a two-for-one for it in the American Casino Guide, too.

California - The coffee shop has a prime rib dinner with all the trimmings, including dessert of Cherries Jubilee (oo la la) for under $10. Take the folks on their annversary! We did. Dutch treat, of course. If you're really trying to impress someone, the unadvertised Porterhouse special in the fancy Redwood Grille restaurant might bust your budget at around $20. But, heck, if it's your last day before going to prison, live it up.

Ellis Island - This little casino east of Bally's has home-brewed root beer (yummy!) and a bang-up $6.99 steak special. It's not on the menu, so you have to ask for it. But, it's there and it's delightfully good, maybe the best steak dinner $7 can buy you in this town. Plus they throw in a micro-brew or root beer for gratis. Thursday nights, the pizza joint in here has two-for-one slices, and you can fill up for a couple bucks.

Four Queens - Prime rib, once again. For $8 this one is a pretty good meal. The coffee shop is nice and the slab is a fair cut. Use the American Casino Guide two-for-one and make it $4.

Gold Coast - A decent steak, with a beer, onion rings, texas toast, potato and baked beans for about $11 is at the higher end of what we can afford, but it's a huge meal and it's actually pretty good.

Gold Rush - A couple bucks will get you a steak and eggs plus a penny in change any time of the day. The drawback is that this little joint is way the heck out in Henderson, where the middle-aged yuppies build their sacred stucco communities. The good news is the place is stinky and smokey enough that the yuppies keep out.

Klondike - Any time you want a spaghetti dinner for a few bucks, head out on Sunset toward Henderson. It smells like the Gold Spike inside, looks like a dump, but the food is cheap and the marinara is only a little watery.

Wildfire - During breakfast hours, you can get a full breakfast with eggs, toast, bacon, et al for under $2. At lunch time, they have a big burger with fries for less than $3. And it actually isn't bad!

Graveyard Specials

We won't pretend to have a comprehensive list of graveyard deals. That's dang near impossible to keep up to date and keep complete. But, here are the best deals in town that we know about and that seem to be there for a while. Plus, we don't list the late night specials that actually aren't that special. Just the dirt cheapest ones are here.

Arizona Charlie's Decatur - After 11 p.m. the Sourdough Cafe has a few full breakfasts for just $2.22. Pancakes, eggs, hash browns, even french toast. Oo la la.

California - For under four bucks after 11 p.m. you can get chicken strips, a half-pound steak with frieds or potato, and--what's this-- a banana fritter? That's weird, and cool, too. Sort of like a roommate we used to have.

Ellis Island - If you got two bucks (and tax) you can enjoy yourself what we call "The Widowmaker", which is two eggs, biscuits and gravy and then bacon or sausage as a pleasant dessert. They will even call the ambulance for you when your heart stops.

Gold Coast - Ham and egss for only $2? It's true, so long as you stay up until midnight. But not on Christma! If you do, Santa will see you, and he'll eat your ham, then your eggs, then leave you coal.

Orleans - While Ellis Island has the Widowmaker, the Orleans simply offers the more modest Widow-enabler with their $2 biscuits and gravy. They also have a few other dishes for about $3-$4 like hamm or steak and eggs. Heck, at these prices, why not get two? But only on weeknights after midnight.

South Point - Late at night, after the children are tied to the bed, sneak away with a loved one and treat yourself to the ultimate in romantic indulgence: a range of dirt-cheap graveyard specials, including steak and eggs for four bucks and other full breakfasts for a couple of bucks. Nothing says I love you more loudly or firmly. Well, except maybe a burp or fart.

Sun Coast - A decent breakfast with pancake and eggs is only $2. Steak and eggs is another dollar. But, hey, you're in Vegas and you gotta live it up. Grandma's pills can wait until next month. After midnight only.

Tuscany - Man, we didn't even know this drowsy place stayed open until midnight. Apparently it does, and for five hours in the middle of the night you can get pancakes for a buck. Or biscuits and gravy for two. If you got more money than common sense, go ahead, splurge on the $3 steak and eggs.