Hollywood has its own answer to Miami Spice, and its menus start lower. Dine Out Hollywood, the city's restaurant month, runs through Oct. 31 with 27 restaurants downtown and on Hollywood Beach serving fixed-price menus, starting at $18 for a full lunch with a glass of wine. There are no tickets and no passes. You pick a place, check its days and hours, and go.

How it works

The City of Hollywood runs the program from its Dine Out Hollywood page, which lists every participant with its menu. Most are three-course deals: a starter, a main and a dessert, each picked from a short list. Prices, participating days and hours vary from place to place, so the menu is worth a glance before you go, and the city suggests booking wherever a restaurant takes reservations.

The list splits roughly in half between Downtown Hollywood, around Hollywood Boulevard and Harrison Street, and the beach, from the Broadwalk to the Intracoastal. That is the real appeal: in one month you can work through the downtown corridor that has quietly become one of Broward's better places to eat, then finish the month with your toes nearly in the sand.

The best deals on the list

The bargain is at Piola, where $18 buys a lunch of salad, a main such as lasagna or a chicken Caesar, and a glass of house wine, iced tea or soda. Mimi's Ravioli does a $25 lunch built around its parm subs with a cannoli to finish, and also offers a $65 family dinner for four, with trays of baked ziti or stuffed shells with meatballs.

On the beach, Broadwalk on the Beach runs a $25 lunch and a $45 dinner a few steps from the ocean. Taverna Opa, the Greek party restaurant on the Intracoastal, offers a $40 dinner: saganaki or calamari to start, then lemon chicken, roasted lamb or grilled salmon, and baklava or orange cake.

Where to splurge

At the top of the range, JWB Prime, the steakhouse at Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, has a $60 dinner that opens with Wagyu meatballs or baked goat cheese with guava jam, moves to steak frites, pan-seared salmon or roasted chicken, and ends with key lime pie, banana pie or mango sorbet. Crab cakes are a $15 upgrade.

Downtown, Common Room, the newer American comfort-food spot on Harrison Street, is doing a $50 dinner from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, with choices like spicy rigatoni with burrata, a crispy half Southern fried chicken with honey-buttered cornbread, and Faroe Island salmon.

The full list

Downtown participants include The Greek Joint, Tótem Beach Resto Bar, Villa Romana, Redwood Bar & Kitchen, Common Room, Chocolada, Aura Lounge, ChileLimon Fusion, Twin Peaks and Tardes Caleñas. On the beach side, the list includes GG's Waterfront, JWB Prime, Tiki Tiki, HAUSMASH, Taco Beach Shack, Blue Wave Argentinian Gastropub, Broadwalk on the Beach, Latitudes, Taverna Opa and Why Not. La Mesa Latina, The Food Corner, Mimi's Ravioli, PRIVÉ 954, Piola and Palms Mediterranean Grill round it out.

Why it is worth doing this month

Restaurant months exist to get people through doors they have driven past for years, and Hollywood's version is aimed squarely at its own residents as much as at visitors. Three weeks are left. Pick one place downtown you have never tried and one on the beach you have been meaning to get back to, and October takes care of itself.