Editor's note: The subhead on this story has been updated to reflect that a restaurant mentioned in this story is not closing. Rather, it temporarily closed due to weather and a shortage of eggs.
Scrambled, sunny side up, fried, over-easy or simply soft-boiled, the eggsploding price of America’s favorite breakfast food has been ruining breakfasts everywhere — and it has restaurants and diners across the Cowboy State scrambling to keep up.
The egg crisis has been so dire, it’s even forced some restaurants like Bob’s Diner & Bakery in Greybull to close temporarily for one day due to weather and a lack of affordable eggs.
Normally, Bob and Deanna Skillman, who own the restaurant, shop in Billings, Montana, for their eggs, where they’ve been able to get the cheapest prices. But, last week, they were snowed in and couldn’t make their usual trip.
“We could go to our local grocer for eggs, but they just had 60 for $42,” Deanna told Cowboy State Daily.
Given the cost was significantly higher than eggs from wholesale food company Sysco, which was bringing them new eggs on Thursday, they just couldn’t quite bring themselves to do that for one day’s business.
“So that day, I just worked on making some bakery items that did not contain eggs,” Deanna said.
Bakery substitutes for eggs include a quarter-cup of apple sauce per egg, or a medium banana or a quarter-cup of yogurt. The latter is particularly good in many baking situations, because it’s so creamy.
One of the posts Deanna made on social media about their egg travails attracted 1,300 commenters who shared her pain, Bob told Cowboy State Daily.
“One third of them said they had just stopped serving eggs,” Bob said. “It is bad.”
Last week, Bob said the restaurant’s cost for 15 dozen medium eggs was $100 a box, or around 56 cents per egg.
“When we first started it was just $15 a box for extra large eggs,” he added. “Or about 8 cents an egg.”
The end doesn’t seem to be in sight yet, and the situation has forced the Skillmans to raise prices again.
“We had no choice but to,” Bob said. “We can’t stop serving eggs.”
Shortage Has Prompted Surcharges
Other restaurants where breakfast is king reported similar problems.
Eggs at the Diamond Horseshoe Café in Cheyenne, for example, are approaching $1 per egg, Cowboy State Daily was told by a waitress.
Menu prices were raised once already as a result.
Epic Egg in Cheyenne, meanwhile, is going the Waffle House route with a surcharge on egg dishes. That way, they don’t have to add to the price crunch by printing and reprinting menus for what they hope will be a temporary problem.
“Our egg costs have risen more than 200% since February 2004,” Mike Moriarty with Epic Egg in Cheyenne told Cowboy State Daily.
Their surcharge is around 8% of the overall cost of any dish containing eggs. In most cases, that’s adding $1 to $2 to their all-day breakfast dishes.
“In addition to bird flu issues, Colorado has mandated 100% cage free eggs,” Moriarty said. “That has decreased egg supplies, driving prices up.”
Moriarty, like most consumers, is looking forward to lower prices, but egg prices aren’t expected to drop any time soon.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has projected egg prices will rise another 20.3% in 2025, due to continued supply chain issues, after culling more than 13 million egg-laying hens. Total poultry losses to bird flu since 2022 have totaled more than 136 million birds.
It will take significant time for poultry producers to recover from these losses. That recovery will be faster for meat birds than it will be for egg-layers. New hens take time to grow to the right reproductive age.
No state in the union has been immune from bird flu outbreaks, including Wyoming. USDA data shows commercial bird flu outbreaks in eight counties, including Campbell, Converse, Fremont, Johnson, Lincoln, Park, Sheridan, and Washakie counties.
Short-order cook Veronica Cervantes at R&B Breakfast Club in Cheyenne prepares some over-easy eggs at the busy Cheyenne diner in this file photo. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily) 
A sign on the door at Epic Egg in Cheyenne advises customers that the restaurant has added a surcharge to its egg dishes of 8%. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Willie Banks flips a set of over-easy eggs on the grill at Diamond Horseshoe Cafe in Cheyenne. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
One of the many egg dishes at Epic Egg in Cheyenne. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Dozens of eggs await some grill love at Diamond Horseshoe Cafe in Cheyenne. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Eggs are getting to be like gold lately — always going up in price. Two eggs slowly cook on the grill at the Diamond Horshoe Cafe in Cheyenne, which is among restaurants who have had to raise menu prices due to the cost of the breakfast favorite. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Epic Egg in Cheyenne is among restaurants implementing a surcharge for egg dishes. The surcharge is 8% per egg dish. Waffle House has done a similar thing nationwide, to deal with the "eggsplosion" of prices for America's favorite breakfast staple. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A breakfast skillet at Diamond Horseshoe Cafe in Cheyenne is a favorite menu item at the restaurant, particularly on weekends. It's two eggs over fried potatoes with gravy and cheese on top. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
King-sized portions of crispy has browns, sausage gravy on biscuits and two eggs over easy, plus a bottomless cup of coffee at the R&B Diner in Cheyenne. Hot sauce is optional, but we're sure Elvis would have approved either way. (Renée Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Grocery Stores Limiting Purchases
Adding to the pain point for egg supply is a shortage of long-haul truck drivers to ship eggs, and the implementation of cage-free laws in multiple states, including California and Michigan as well as Colorado.
Grocery stores have been affected by the egg shortage as well, with a number of them limiting the number of cartons individual customers may buy.
Sprouts Farmers Market in Cheyenne, for example, was limiting customers to no more than 2 cartons of one-dozen eggs.
The interesting thing though, was cage-free eggs were going for around $5.50 a dozen — about $2 cheaper than their non-free range colleagues.
There’s a reason for this atypical inversion. And it’s not just that organic, free-range egg farms haven’t been hit as hard by the avian flu.
Contracts for these types of eggs have not yet expired for the year, a New York grocery told Fox News in an article about the price disparity — though that’s expected in coming weeks.
Once that happens, organic and cage-free egg prices are expected to normalize. That is, shoot up dramatically — past $10 a dozen.
Another disparity consumers may have noticed is that poultry itself hasn’t gone up all that much. Chicken wings, for example, for Super Bowl parties, were still quite reasonable.
A pound of hot, ready-to-go breaded chicken wings were just $4.46 per pound at Walmart, for example. They also had fresh chicken wings available for just $3.28 per pound in the 4- to 5-pound trays.
America Loves Eggs
So far, the Skillmans said higher egg prices haven’t seemed to cut into customer appetites for eggs — even for dishes that use a lot of eggs and have risen the most in price.
Like the eggs Benedict, which is two poached eggs smothered in hollandaise, a sauce made from egg yolks, lemon and butter.
“That started at $14,” Deanna said. “We had to raise it to $16, and now it’s $18. So it’s just like a ridiculous gradual increase.”
Eggs are at the top of America’s favorite breakfast foods. In fact, according to USDA statistics, Americans ate on average 281.3 eggs per person last year.
Inflation hasn’t put much of dent in the figure over the years either. Growth has been pretty steady since 1991, the low point for egg consumption, when the average American ate 229 eggs.
Egg consumption started taking off again after 2016, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services dropped its stance recommending against excessive egg consumption due to their cholesterol content.
These days, the prevailing scientific opinion is that not all cholesterol is bad. Eggs are now considered a superfood in some circles, because they are packed with antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, which protects eyes from age-related macular degeneration, and they have things like omega-3 fatty acids — beneficial to heart health — as well as hard to get vitamins like D and E.
They’re also a great source of brain healthy cholines, essential for cognitive function, and they have all nine amino acids, making them a high-quality source of complete protein in a tiny package that may cost more than we’re used to, but is still just 70 calories per egg.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
