Ok, on a certain economic level it does make sense to not offer free food for thousands of people. I would expect, however, that a decent meal would not cost as much as it would in a downtown restaurant/café. Are there any infos on prices and food quality?

The food is quite good (better than Google's, by my taste, though reasonable people may disagree), and partially subsidized. Lunch runs you ~$8-12 (typical casual lunch prices for the Bay Area, but with better quality).

Also many of the individual orgs within Apple do have free snacks for their teams; it's not a campus-wide thing.