Danielle Renwick of The Guardian tells her readers that ‘No one wants to pay $25 for breakfast’. Rising egg prices and inflation are hitting breakfast restaurants hard. With costs for eggs, coffee, and other ingredients climbing, many eateries are raising prices or adding cheaper items, risking customer alienation and making it harder to stay profitable. Renwick writes:
Most menu items at the popular Philadelphia breakfast chain Green Eggs Cafe are – true to its name – made with eggs.
Its co-owner Stephen Slaughter said that about 90% of its dishes depend on eggs, ticking off a short list: “Our French toast, our pancake batters, our hollandaise sauce, obviously eggs and omelets.” So when his vendors started charging $8 for a dozen eggs, all six Green Egg Cafe locations felt the pinch.
Slaughter said that a year ago, the ingredients for a plate of bacon, eggs and toast with a side of coffee might have cost $3 or $4; he estimates those costs have now doubled. […]
It’s not just eggs that have gone up in price. Coffee is at a 47-year high, driven by climate disruptions in Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s largest producers. The cost of frozen orange juice has nearly doubled since 2020, due to citrus disease and climate shocks. Flour, too, has become more expensive in recent years, with prices spiking in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Slaughter’s team last increased prices in October 2023 due to inflation. “We’re trying to do everything we can to not raise our prices. No one wants to go into a breakfast place and have to pay $25,” he said. […]
Amy Smith, an economist with the consulting group Advanced Economics Solutions, said the median price increase for popular breakfast items like eggs, coffee, sausage, bacon and orange juice was 19% compared with last year and double 2020 costs. […]
“Everyone tells me it’s harder and harder to make money in the restaurant business,” he said. Some businesses cut hours or use lower-quality ingredients to deal with higher overhead, such as labor and rent. “The fear is that you’re just not going to be able to make ends meet, no matter how popular you are.”
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