HOUSTON RESTAURANTS ARE CRACKING UNDER HIGH EGG PRICES

In recent weeks, egg prices around the country have skyrocketed due to inflation and, most recently, the spread of bird flu, leaving many Houston restaurant owners at a crossroads: Should they wait it out, increase their menus’ prices, or take egg dishes off their menus altogether?

MasterChef alumna Christine Ha, who owns the drive-thru sandwich shop Stuffed Belly in Spring Branch, tells Eater that instead of raising the price for her Humpty Dumpty Egg’wich, an egg salad sandwich, she’s removed it from the menu entirely. The costs of making the sandwich were just too high due to the expense of its main ingredient. “We’re hoping it’s a temporary removal,” Ha says. “We just didn’t want to increase [the price of the sandwich] so significantly for our customers, so we decided we’ll just ‘kind of’ remove it from the menu for now. Hopefully, the Avian flu and egg situation gets under control.” This moratorium won’t extend to all sandwiches featuring eggs; Stuffed Belly’s Tuna Crunch sandwich, for example, will remain on the menu since egg plays a smaller role, Ha says.

Elsewhere, restaurants with menus heavily dependent on eggs are in a waiting game, which has left many debating if or when to increase their prices.

Chefs and restaurateurs say restaurants, especially bakeries and those that serve breakfast or egg-based dishes, will likely feel the heat the most. Michael Saghian, who owns two locations of New York Deli and Coffee Shop and a catering company, says taking eggs off his menus is not an option. “The number one item sold on our menu every single day is our two-egg special. Almost everything here revolves around eggs. And then, we’re a bakery; everything’s baked with eggs,” Saghian says.

New York Deli, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in October, goes through 50 cases of eggs a day, and with cases most recently priced at a whopping $118 per case, Saghian says he’s lost $10,000 in a month on eggs alone.

At Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen, eggs are also big business. The diner-style restaurant makes its own egg noodles, cakes, and pies, and uses eggs in its matzo balls and popular breakfast and brunch dishes. It easily goes through 50 cases — 9,000 eggs — roughly every two days. Ziggy Gruber says he recently procured cases for $105 each, which cost him around $18,000 a week. “The people who are suffering are our restaurant workers and caterers and regular consumers. People who are just trying to make a living, trying to feed their families,” Gruber says.

Egg prices have seen wild fluctuations over the last several years. Saghian remembers the average cost of eggs in 2021 was between $25 to $30, and dipped down dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic to around $8 to $9 a case when people were dining out less and eating fewer eggs. Price hikes began in 2022, as inflation ratcheted upward, when the highest price he remembers paying was between $60 to $80 a case. Now, cases cost double, or even triple, that.

Still, most restaurants want to keep their prices steady, particularly for loyal customers who might experience sticker shock. Saghian, Ha, and Gruber say they have no plans to raise their menu prices yet, though Saghian says he’s seen some restaurants not be as patient and already increase egg-based dish prices. He says he thinks they may be jumping the gun. “We try to keep our prices as low as possible. We’re not a modern-day, fancy brunch place,” he says. “We’re an old-school diner, and you know you’re gonna get value for your money as long as we can help it. But if this goes on for months and months, I won’t be able to [keep prices the same].”

Balancing bottom lines with diners’ budgets takes a lot of consideration, planning, time, and money. “It takes us a good month to even be able to update and change prices because we have paper copy menus that go out on the tables,” Saghian says, adding that he’d also have to change prices online and for the restaurant’s food delivery partners.

While Houston restaurants continue to estimate and wait, some national chains have already upped their prices. The Associated Press reports that Waffle House has added a $0.50 surcharge to each egg ordered due to the dramatic price increase of eggs (a dozen cost an average of $4.15 across the country in December). According to the United States Department of Agriculture, these grocery prices will likely increase by 20 percent within the year, but it won’t be forever. “If this keeps going on another quarter or two, you’re gonna start seeing everybody raising prices,” Saighan says.

“I’m just waiting to see at this point,” Gruber says. He’s hesitant to make the move, though, noting that when most restaurants increase menu prices to account for inflation and rising costs, they typically don’t drop their prices again. “I don’t like doing that,” he says.

Houston restaurateurs have also been notified that other ingredients and produce could see similar price surges, which jives with the USDA’s prediction that there will be at least a 2-percent overall increase this year. Gruber says he’s heard rumors of brisket prices rising due to the cost of feed growing more expensive. As a result, he’s said some farmers are feeding fewer cows. Ha says she’s seen the prices of avocados increase, despite their supposed importation before the tariffs were imposed. She’s already considered removing avocado from dishes and desserts at her restaurant Blind Goat in hopes of mitigating the costs and not charging diners more.

Gruber says one thing’s for sure — it’s getting increasingly hard to compassionately navigate the restaurant business. “It’s not for the faint of heart,” he says.

2025-02-07T22:32:42Z