You’ve never been conflicted before if you’ve never been stuck on finding a place to eat lunch in the maze that is SoHo.

There are lots of great places to eat near the iSchool, but it can be hard to find somewhere to get an inexpensive lunch in one of New York’s more expensive neighborhoods. The students at the school are experts, however, and they find great places to eat on a budget.

A few student favorites include Essen, a market with buffets and pre-prepared food, dollar pizza, Chipotle, and Sunrise Mart, a Japanese specialty market.

Essen is a market located at 160 Varick street. It’s more of an expensive option as these go, but they have a great variety of food. This includes a hot and a cold buffet as well as pre-made sandwiches, salad, soup and sushi. The buffet food is priced depending on the weight, but all the pre-packaged food has a set price. Another great thing about Essen is the seating area (and the bathroom) upstairs, which has many tables that you can sit at to eat your lunch.

Sunrise Mart is located at 494 Broome Street. It’s like a small supermarket, but similar to Essen, it has an area upstairs where you can sit to eat. Sunrise sells lots of Japanese snacks and drinks, as well as sushi, rice balls (onigiri), french fries, and larger more expensive lunch boxes. Mayrav Estrin, a freshman, says “I like getting sushi and french fries. I think it’s really good.”

The lines at both Essen and Sunrise can be a little long, but they usually move quickly and leave you with enough time to eat before you have to go back to school.

There are many pizza places close to the school, but the Dollar Pizza on Canal Street seems to be the most popular. Kids from the iSchool go there every lunch, and the line to order can sometimes stretch outside the door. Despite this, it’s a good option because of the low cost.

Hansel Figueora, a junior at the iSchool, says that ¨the pizza is reasonably tasty for the price that they offer for it.¨ He highly recommends the restaurant to other students.

Another popular option is Chipotle, a Mexican chain restaurant. iSchool sophomore Cesar Medina says he goes there often for their burritos, which he likes it because they remind him of Spanish food.

Teachers at the iSchool don’t really go outside like the students do for lunch. Andrea Mangano, an English teacher at the iSchool says she doesn’t really go out for lunch because she is usually busy grading.

Thomas Smolka, a Science teacher at the iSchool, also doesn’t really go out for lunch, as he brings food from home most times from his home in Staten Island.

What’s nice about being in Manhattan is the variety of cuisine you can find, and there are some great lunch spots in SoHo that won’t cost you a fortune… if you know where to look.