A young Australian woman blew up a cafe after she was charged $6 for an extra egg with her breakfast.
Alyssa Jayne, from Queensland’s Gold Coast, paid $13 for ‘eggs your way’ with two slices of toast but only one egg.
When she went to add an extra egg as a side dish, her bill increased significantly.
“Does anyone know how much it costs a cafe if someone adds an extra egg, like how much that extra egg would cost them, because why the hell does it cost us six dollars?” she said in a TikTok.
“$6?! No no no no. I’m not spending six dollars on one poached egg.”
She said the fact her meal didn’t already contain two eggs was “criminal” as there were two slices of bread.
“I understand you want to make a profit, but that’s like daylight theft,” Ms. Jayne said.
“I can go to Coles and buy a pack of twelve eggs for five or six dollars, and you tell me you’re charging me six dollars for my one egg.”
Alyssa Jayne has questioned why cafes charge so much for side dishes after being charged $6 for an extra egg with her breakfast
Ms Jayne said that when she worked at a cafe as a teenager, the company charged customers an extra $2 if they asked for their eggs to be prepared differently from what was on the menu.
“$2 for you to make another move of your hand,” she said.
Her TikTok has been viewed more than 20,000 times, with many commenters wondering why meals weren’t cheaper if certain items were removed.
“And why if I ask to remove the poached egg from my Caesar salad, isn’t the salad $6 cheaper?” wrote one.
‘Poached eggs should always be 2 eggs. Is the menu item called “poached egg,” said another.
“They now charge $6 to add avocado. “I had to take all the bacon and cheese out of my meal and you didn’t deduct it from the price,” one person commented.
“When I go out to eat I get eggs Benny but I always want to add a tomato, avocado and a hash brown but then I remember that costs $16 and that’s criminal,” read another comment.
Others pointed out that it didn’t have to do with the cost of the egg, but rather the cost of labor.
‘Cafe owner here. One egg costs 0.36, but the cost of doing business is about $180,000 a year for staff, utilities and rent, not including the cost of goods (raw food prices),” one person said.
“Because you pay for the egg, the person who cooks the egg, the water, the electricity…,” another commented.
It comes amid an egg shortage in Australia following the detection of bird flu on farms across the country.
Woolworths introduced a limit of two packs of eggs per person on Thursday due to a ‘slowdown’ in supplies.
Ms Jayne said that when she worked at a cafe as a teenager, the company charged customers an extra $2 if they asked for their eggs to be cooked in a different style than what was on the menu (stock image)
The limits apply to stores in NSW, ACT and Victoria. Other states remain unaffected.
“Along with other retailers, we expect a short-term slowdown in stock from one of our egg suppliers in NSW, ACT and Victoria, due to the temporary closure of one of their packing sheds,” a Woolworths spokesperson said.
“Their supply is expected to recover over the next week as they ramp up operations at their other locations.”
Woolworths’ decision came on the back of rival Coles, which previously imposed its own two-box limit.
Coles rationing applies nationwide, with the exception of Western Australia.
Woolworths said the measure was a “precautionary measure” and expected it to be lifted soon.
“Currently, the majority of customers only purchase one carton of eggs at a time, and there is no reason for that to change,” the spokesperson said.
“We encourage shoppers to be considerate of others and only continue to buy what they normally would.”
Bird flu has been confirmed at two farms in NSW and eight in Victoria.
More than a million birds are expected to be destroyed in Victoria as a result of the outbreak and the NSW toll is well over 320,000.