After seven years in business in Overland Park, breakfast eatery Flapjacks ‘n more has been through a lot.
Owner George Grekousis knows the restaurant business is “never a dull moment”, after all. Though he closed his restaurant’s Shawnee location last fall, the flagship location in Overland Park has stood the test of time — even weathering the COVID-19 pandemic and its related supply chain challenges.
But Grekousis said the skyrocketing prices of eggs that he’s seen in the past several months — from roughly $25 to $125 per case of 15 dozen eggs — is nothing like any hike in expenses that he’s seen before.
“Eggs are about $125 (per case),” he said. “I’ve been in the business a long time, and I haven’t seen that before.”
In January, egg prices in the United States hit a then-record peak, with a dozen eggs going for $4.95, according to the consumer price index.
Prices kept rising in February, eventually topping out at $5.90 per dozen eggs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Price Outlook report for 2025 said retail egg prices were up 58.8% in February 2025 over February 2024.
In more recent weeks, egg prices have started to fall, wholesaling for $3.00 per dozen, according to the USDA. But sticker shock is still possible at local groceries.
Currently, a dozen Best Choice brand Grade A large eggs go for $5.69 at Hen House grocery stores. At World Fresh Market in Overland Park, a case of 30 eggs went for $11.99 as of the end of March.
As egg prices continue to hover at high levels due in large part to the effects of an avian flu outbreak, the impacts have left local eateries like Flapjacks ‘n more scrambling to absorb the rising costs.
Months into avian flu, egg prices are still high
The jump in prices mainly stems from an ongoing avian flu outbreak, which has impacted the egg and poultry industries on a national level.
Officials from the Kansas Department of Agriculture confirmed 10 cases of avian flu between December 2024 and February 2025, according to a department email sent to the Post.
The latest outbreak of this strain of the H5N1 virus started to spread in 2024, leading to a significant reduction in egg production that caused prices to rise.
Though egg prices appear to finally be inching downward as avian flu outbreaks are contained on a national level, Amanda Lindahl, local food systems program coordinator at the K-State Research and Extension Office, said it may still be a while before that decline is reflected in what customers see at the grocery store.
“When we lose all of those (sick) chickens that are mass producing these eggs for market, to restart that production takes many months,” Lindahl said. “Chickens generally don’t start laying until around five or six months of age. And so once you have to eliminate them due to this outbreak of influenza, to restart producing takes a longer time.”
Eric Feeble, former deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the USDA, also pointed out that any eggs that hit grocery store shelves will have been priced based on availability several weeks before.
As such, he said, it will take a while to get enough birds through the process of producing usable eggs, selling and shipping them, and preparing them for retail.
“What happened is what we had encountered previously as a seasonal disease seemed to become a year-round disease,” Deeble said. “That continued disease pressure and the depopulation that happens when birds get sick caused a constrained supply of layers and broilers. So we saw decreases in availability of both of those categories.”
In the meantime, Lindahl said that while the high prices could make it more difficult for businesses to make ends meet, the issue is likewise important from a consumer’s public health perspective.
“Eggs are generally a really affordable, healthy protein source for people, and with the higher prices, a lot of people are definitely cutting back on their egg consumption,” she said. “Groceries across the board, we know, are still pretty high, and that definitely affects our food-insecure neighbors more.
“For folks that can afford to continue to buy those eggs, they might be fine, but we really worry about our neighbors that are living on that limited budget, and how they’re able to still eat a quality, healthy diet.”
While consumers have felt the impacts of the outbreak at the grocery checkout line, so have the farms that produce eggs.
As Deeble pointed out, the inability to effectively produce eggs due to a viral outbreak creates both financial and health obstacles for farmers.
“You’ve got to remember, you’ve got farmers and farm workers who are directly harmed by this disease,” he said. “This could be a meaningful imposition on a consumer, but it can be career-ending and life and death for some of the folks who are a little further up that value chain.
“Really, at the heart of it, the high prices that folks see and the pain that they’re feeling when they pull out their wallet is a sign of a system that is struggling.”
Both demand and prices for eggs went up
Gerardo Serrano, owner of Kolaches and Coffee in Overland Park, said he started to feel pinched by the rising cost of eggs toward the end of last year.
His eatery and cafe’s specialty is kolaches, which are Czech pastries with sweet or savory fillings.
Though frying up omelets isn’t a part of Kolaches and Coffee’s day-to-day operations, Serrano said eggs are incorporated into roughly 80% of the cafe’s menu — including its savory kolaches with breakfast fillings like bacon, egg and cheese.
For a case with 15 dozen eggs, Serrano said he’d been paying as low as $20 at the beginning of 2024.
Then over the summer, he watched the price jump to $40, then $60, and it kept climbing. As of February 2025, that price had jumped to $150 — and some weeks, the eggs themselves are harder to find than others.
“We use a lot of eggs, and the prices are really, really high,” he said. “But it’s not only the prices, it’s the scarcity.”
Oscar Romero, owner of AR’s Breakfast and Brunch in Overland Park, has seen a similar jump in prices from US Foods — paying roughly $100 more for weekly cases of eggs that once ranged between $36 and $50.
Grekousis with Flapjacks ‘n more, Serrano with Kolaches and Coffee and Romero with AR’s all said they source their eggs from wholesale distributors like US Foods or Sysco.
Representatives from US Foods did not immediately respond to Post inquiries. Representatives from Sysco declined to comment for this story.
Popular breakfast chain First Watch, which has multiple Johnson County locations, also issued the following statement:
“We have not taken any pricing action directly related to eggs. We continue to monitor the environment while keeping our customers top-of-mind. Our pricing philosophy has been to consider our overall market basket vs any one commodity.
Given the current broader landscape, we have placed a particular focus on delivering value and providing an exceptional experience. Recently we have made several investments into the customer experience, including increasing portions on certain menu items.”
Sourcing eggs locally may pose a solution
Rather than opting for cheaper egg alternatives like liquid eggs, one Johnson County business owner has found a more “homegrown” solution.
Tina Yake, owner of The Wooden Spoon in Overland Park, saw an increase of more than $100 for 15 dozen eggs this spring — going from paying $38 to roughly $150. In turn, she now charges “market price” for all egg-based dishes to keep up with price fluctuation.
“This is actually not anything new to us — since we opened our first store 14 years ago, every year the bird flu would come around,” she said. “It just got to a point where this year, I think, was the worst we’d ever seen it.”
When prices became too high to continue sourcing eggs from larger distributors, she decided to take a localized approach — purchasing her own chickens to produce her own eggs.
At a media event with Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids in March, Yake announced the decision to partner with a local farm to raise and source from a flock of chickens.
“We’re staggering bringing in chickens because just for our restaurant’s two locations, I need a minimum of 350 chickens to lay what we need,” she said. “In the meantime, we’re riding the wave.”
Ultimately, Lindahl with the K-State Extension Office said that sourcing eggs locally could make a difference in terms of affordability. In part, she said, that’s because avoiding virus outbreaks could be a numbers game.
“When we look at folks that are growing chickens and selling at local markets — whether that’s local farmers markets or local grocers — they’re much smaller overall production sizes, and they’re less susceptible to these bigger sort of outbreaks,” she said. “The actual means of production can be very different as well. When a chicken producer is growing chickens on a smaller scale, they may have more space in their chicken houses, and a lot of them are utilizing outdoor growing methods as well.”
As the weather starts to warm up and farmers market season approaches in Johnson County, Lindahl said there’s no time like the present to consider seeking a local alternative.
“Knowing where your food comes from, and having that ability to buy directly from a local producer, we just see those benefits really coming out now,” she said. “We hope that (egg prices) come down in the grocery store so everybody has access to eggs as they would like. But in the meantime, I would really encourage folks to find a local farmer and purchase from them.”
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