Athens has a lively restaurant and bar scene fueled by the University of Georgia. Downtown on Broad Street and the surrounding blocks offer a dense concentration of options — cheap pizza, good Indian and Thai, Southern diners, and craft beer bars.
The food ranges widely: you can find Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Italian, and old-school Southern cooking within a few blocks of each other. The Five Points neighborhood south of downtown is more laid-back and has some good independent cafes and restaurants.