Think brown bag, and the associations are immediate: construction worker, mom’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or perhaps yesterday’s best-forgotten greasy takeout.

Certainly not fine dining, right?

Not if some of L.A.’s better-known restaurants have anything to do with it. Try something like a roasted jidori chicken sandwich with olive tapenade, an iced tea and a gourmet cookie, all bundled up in a brown bag and costing $14.

Sounds steep, but not really given that the jidori sandwich, which features free-range organic chicken, ordinarily goes for $13 alone at Ammo, a pricey Hollywood eatery that has started offering cheaper, brown-bag versions of its lunches.

Call it an obvious sign of the times.

Ammo, which was established in 1992 as a catering service before the restaurant opened in ’98, has survived slowdowns. But this latest recession has prompted more than the usual price cuts.

“We figure we’d make lunch more affordable and retain customers also,” said Benedikt “Benny” Bohm, managing partner of the Highland Avenue restaurant, which specializes in fresh seasonal fare and has been compared favorably to Berkeley’s famous Chez Panisse. “It’s a light lunch where they are happy after it.”

Among the other local eateries that have signed on to the brown bag trend are Little Dom’s, an Italian-American restaurant in Los Feliz, and Fig, a restaurant in Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar hotel that opened earlier this year to rave reviews.

Several lunch entrees top $20 at Fig, but the brown bag lunch deal averages $14 to $18 and include several of the restaurant’s signature dishes such as the merguez en baguette with spicy harissa sauce, cucumber and olives.

However, there are limitations to the concept. Bohm said some of the nicer sandwiches on the regular lunch menu, such as one with prosciutto, a delicate Italian ham, can’t be sold brown bag because it would mean taking a loss.

“I can’t offer a certain sandwich with a dessert and drink for $14 because that sandwich itself is $16,” he said. “There’s a certain limit to how far you can extend the deal.”