Joe's Pizza.

Let’s talk slices, because this is where the fifteen-dollar rule gets fun. Joe’s Pizza at 1435 Broadway, right in the Times Square crush, is the platonic New York plain slice. Thin, foldable, a little grease, the good kind. A plain slice runs somewhere in the high threes to low fours, which means two slices and a canned soda land you comfortably under ten dollars with change to spare. That is a real lunch for the price of a fancy coffee.

Here is the math nobody does out loud. A plain slice plus a pepperoni slice is your best value play, because you get variety and you are still nowhere near fifteen. Add a third slice if you skipped breakfast and you are still under budget. Try doing that at a sit-down place two blocks away and watch fifteen dollars evaporate before the bread basket arrives.

The honest downside. It is Times Square, so the line moves like molasses at noon and the counter is chaos. Go at 11:30 or after 2, eat it standing at the shelf, and do not let a tourist talk you into a whole pie you did not need. Joe’s is open absurdly late too, past three in the morning most nights, which makes it the other great after-hours option alongside the halal cart.