Some local restaurants are having trouble paying for ingredients to make our meals.

When a customer orders a breakfast at one of Columbia's diners, the chef almost always reaches for eggs.

Restaurant owners are paying more--not only for eggs--but also for oils and other ingredients. Ernie's Diner has raised its prices twice in the last 18 months by about 30 percent.

Ernie's owner Tony Spurling said, "The bottom line is that the consumer pays the higher price. As food cost continues to rise and the labor cost continues to rise, you've got one avenue, and that's to raise prices across the board.  Ultimately, the consumer pays that bottom line price."

It used to cost a restaurant owner about 7 cents to buy one egg from wholesalers. Now, the same egg will cost 11 cents.

At Columbia's Bread Basket Cafe, owners have increased prices twice this year by a dollar or two on some sandwiches.

Manager Stacie Ayers said, "For instance, we might have paid 16, 26 dollars for flour and it's like 40 dollars now. So definitely, we had to raise prices."

Food prices have gone up due to higher oil and energy prices, but also because of growing demand for food from China and India, as well as the weak dollar driving inflation.

Restaurant owners are also complaining about higher labor costs as the minimum wage goes up.