CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. -- Alton's Restaurant has been serving customers in Cheektowaga for more than 40 years.

General Manager Audrea Arricale said the casual dining establishment is known for serving breakfast all day.

"We use eggs and we have a huge breakfast crowd here. It's the majority of our menu. We use them in everything,"she said.

A year and a half ago, Arricale said a case of eggs cost the restaurant about $38. Today, that same case is $220.

It continues to leave the restaurant with the difficult choice of raising prices for customers or eating the loss.

"We're part of that working class so we know how tough it is to come out and choose to spend your money here, your hard-earned money and keep the prices affordable. We cannot be changing our prices every week," she said.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said the surge is the result of a nationwide outbreak of bird flu forcing some farmers to kill thousands of their hens. He said he helped secure $300 million to manage the problem in December.

"It won't go over easy with me if the new administration or Congress tries to make drastic cuts. Some of the cuts that have been proposed would be for these areas because they cut the Department of Agriculture budget," Schumer said.

The funding is to isolate birds when they do contract the disease, sanitize facilities and for personal protective equipment to ensure farmers don't get sick. Schumer said he'll support allocating more money if necessary.

"This program has worked in the past. It's not a new program. We've had bird flu before but never this bad," he said.

Arricale said the focus on the cost of groceries is appreciated with such small margins in the restaurant business. At Alton's, she said they're focused on order accuracy and wasting as little as possible but that only goes so far.

"Milk, bread and eggs, you would think that those would be the things you could afford and we would like to keep it that way before things get any worse," Arricale said.