Egg prices are no yolk as local restaurants scramble to adjust to soaring prices
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IDAHO FALLS — Local restaurants and bakeries are feeling the pinch as egg prices continue to skyrocket.
According to the Associated Press, the cost of eggs could jump as high as 41% in 2025, after 166 million chickens have been killed due to bird flu, with 30 million since January.
RELATED | Who has the cheapest eggs in Idaho Falls? We went to nine stores to find out.
Abracadabra’s Breakfast & Bistro
One popular, local breakfast restaurant has had to adapt to the new realities.
“The cost of eggs has gone up almost double than what they were a few years ago, and that’s made it a little bit difficult, said Brody Mains, general manager at Abracadabra’s Breakfast & Bistro.
Nearly all of the entrees have been impacted at the restaurant, including “omelets, eggs benedict, French toast and traditional eggs, meat and spuds breakfast items,” explained manager Timmery Sampson.
“I would say 95% of our menu requires eggs,” she said.
Each week, the restaurant runs through 2,000 and 2,200 eggs.
“With the cost, we’ve had to carefully evaluate our prices and try not to raise them so we’re still affordable for people to come enjoy our food,” Sampson said. “But it’s been challenging to take a little bit of a hit on the prices.”
The Rusty Lantern Diner
Up the road in Ucon, The Rusty Lantern Diner faces similar challenges.
“All of our breakfast things have eggs in them — bacon and eggs, ham and eggs, you have a skillet brown that takes two scrambled eggs in it,” co-owner Barbara Hart. “You know, basically, people just eat eggs for breakfast.”
The popular, cozy establishment is a local favorite, but has been impacted by the shortage.
Hart said it’s difficult to procure the 20 dozen eggs necessary to operate their business each week.
“We have a profit margin on things that we factor eggs into, and it’s really hard, when you have a paper menu, to change prices to where your profit stays the same,” Hart said.
The Rusty Lantern hasn’t changed prices yet, but Hart said other restaurants have added stickers that say any item with eggs will cost 50 cents extra per egg.
“My husband has noticed that people are ordering more eggs, extra eggs,” Hart said.
It’s important that people “just keep eating out,” she continued.
Trigo Bakery
Baker Ignacio Angeles works for his daughter’s bakery, The Trigo Bakery, in Idaho Falls. There, he makes Mexican sweet breads like bolillos, conchas and other staples.
He said they had felt the hit of eggs increasing, where they’ve had to increase the prices of their non-stuffed sweet breads by 25 cents, raising the cost to $1.25 and their stuffed breads by 50 cents, making them $2.50.
In a day, they use 100 to 150 eggs, which costs them $250 to buy the quantity they need. He said they aren’t planning on cutting back as he’s thankful for the community’s support.
“Egg (prices) haven’t affected us too much, even though our bread employs a lot of eggs to make,” Angeles said. “It’s something we had to do to bring prices up to level out the costs of the eggs.”
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