An egg shortage is impacting popular breakfast restaurants across the Central Coast. Local café owners say they've had to find creative solutions to keep up with the rising cost of eggs.
"Eggs are my business," said Rhonda Mayeda, the owner of Budget Cafe in San Luis Obispo.
"Basically everything that we have here is made with eggs," said Tammi Price, the owner of Village Cafe in Arroyo Grande.
Mayeda says it's becoming harder and harder to afford the eggs her restaurant relies on.
"My prices have jumped three, probably three-fold, so now I'm paying over $1,000 a week for eggs right now," she said.
Price shared a similar sentiment.
"Eggs have skyrocketed. Obviously, everyone is seeing that. I have to say close to tripling at least, and it's also gotten harder to get eggs," she said.
Normally, Price would go through her distributor but with price increases, she tells me that's no longer an option.
"There's no way I can afford their prices," she said.
So instead, she turned to Costco but says that is also becoming difficult.
"They put a limit on eggs, so you can't even get enough to make it through the day. So you gotta go every day to try to get enough eggs," Price said.
Both cafe owners say eggs aren't the only issue.
"Bacon has gone up, and coffee has really shot up as well," Mayeda said.
They say they are doing everything they can to keep menu prices the same or as low as possible.
"I actually had one customer tell me that he's glad he's seeing that I raised prices because he says, 'I'm worried about you, Rhonda. I want you to stay in business.' And I go, 'Oh thank you, I'm worried about me too,'" Mayeda said.
"All I can do is try to adjust some of my products like maybe cut back on things like maybe not have blackberry jelly because that's more expensive, maybe not have the best ketchup. I got the table 'gourmet' ketchup instead of Heinz. Certain things like that. I still don't want to cut back on my quality of product," Price said.
Both owners say community support has been helpful through this hard time and say they are thankful for their customers who keep coming back.
