A small sticker on the menu at the Village Pizzeria in Langley lets customers know that a 30-cent “surcharge” will be added per slice of their popular pie. A whole pizza, depending on size, is $1 to $1.25 more.

At Neil’s Clover Patch Café in Bayview, a juicy burger is also more pricey these days, and the café’s signature special, steak and prawns, has gone up $2 in the past year.

The increases are the result of the higher cost of restaurant basics such as flour, meat and other raw materials.

“I’ve never seen this kind of increase across the board in more than 20 years,” said Neil Colburn, owner of Neil’s Clover Patch Café.

Concerns about rising food costs and the impact they will have on customers are producing furrows of worry on the brows of South Whidbey’s restaurant owners.

Higher costs have eroded profits at restaurants for about a year now, but owners have been reluctant to raise prices to compensate because they fear alienating customers who are already grappling with higher grocery and gasoline bills.

Colburn said at some point he had no choice but to raise prices, however.

Regulars sitting at the lunch counter at his café have no complaints about the slightly higher ticket, he said, but those who quit going to restaurants trouble the food business veteran.

“The ones that I hear from are very understanding. It’s the ones that stopped coming …” Colburn said.

The cost of the raw materials that will eventually become a pizza or burger have skyrocketed in the past year.

Paul Sarkis, owner of Village Pizzeria, said that eight months ago he paid $12.86 for 50 pounds of flour. His most recent delivery had a price tag of $28.15 for 50 pounds.

The cheese that goes on his pizzas went from $2.30 a pound to $3.15.

Because so many of those commodities are widely used in meals and food products, inflation has taken a bite out of the profit margins of small local restaurants that have tight bottom lines even in the best of times.

The cause is a combination of many factors.

A drought in Australia that wiped out the wheat crop and a global rice shortage have impacted local prices. Pushed by high fuel prices, the weak dollar and the diverting of grain to biofuel production, wholesale food prices increased 7.6 percent in 2007, the greatest single-year increase in 27 years, according to a National Restaurant Association analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Prices went up another 8.5 percent from January through May of this year.

Since January, the cost of flour rose 87 percent nationwide, cheese is 27 percent more expensive, eggs cost 73 percent more and grease is 49 percent more than it was at the beginning of the year, according to the National Restaurant Association and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Area restaurateurs are struggling to cope with annual increases in commodity prices — some have risen 100 percent — and a resulting uneven customer demand across the South End.

“We’ve eliminated two or three different positions,” Colburn said. “Candy and I have increased our hours. And for the first time in 25 years, I had to lay somebody off.”

For several months, some businesses have absorbed the increases in food prices, but are finally starting to pass them along through increases in menu prices, while managers continue to search for savings.

“We’ve always been — us and maybe three others — known as casual dining. We have dinners under $20, lunches under $10. And I’ve always tried to keep it that way,” Colburn said.

Colburn explained that at some point he had to begin passing on the price increase to customers.

“Lunch has gone up twice, dinner once,” he said. “We tried to do it as minimal as possible.”

“It’s the first time in 25 years that we have something on the menu for over $20,” Colburn added.

The pizzeria came up with the concept of the surcharge, and it works.

“What I am finding, mostly people can feed four people for $35 (at the pizzeria). You can’t buy a bag of groceries for $35,” Sarkis said. “People are finding it’s still a good value.”

Sarkis has been in the business for 40 years, and he has never seen such an increase in food costs.

Upscale restaurants are no exception.

“We got hit the hardest on the fresh fish,” said Maureen Cooke, owner of the Fish Bowl in Langley. “We don’t use any farm-raised fish and frozen fish, ever.”

Halibut, Alaskan salmon and king crab legs have become so expensive that she had to adjust prices.

If restaurateurs want to provide an upscale dining experience, she said, it’s tough to cut cost anywhere else.

“It’s hard to offer the right kind of service without the right kind of staff,” she said.

But people are understanding.

“They go to the grocery store and see the king crab at $15.99 a pound,” Cooke said.

Higher prices don’t necessarily mean that people are staying away.

“I’m taking some hits,” Sarkis said. “But sales are actually up.”

That phenomena is repeated at the Clover Patch.

“Even though business in dollars is up over last year, our costs are way up,” Colburn said.

It’s not a secret that everything is more expensive on an island, but in recent months Whidbey restaurant owners also have been hit with higher delivery charges due to the cost of fuel.

“When the energy crunch hit, the invoices with the surcharges began to come in. Diesel, ferry, even the fishing boats,” Colburn said.

Sarkis added that one of his distributors now charges $6 per delivery instead of $2.

“That adds up to $3,000 a year,” he said.

The transportation costs are not the only thing affecting restaurants.

“They are using food products to replace fuel,” Sarkis said.

Few economists or agricultural experts could have predicted that U.S. farm and energy policies promoting biofuels from crops would backfire and pinch the nation’s food industry.

As much as a third of the nation’s corn yield has been allocated to the production of ethanol. Only 10 years ago, 90 percent of the U.S. corn was shipped to manufacturers of livestock.

Colburn said the push for ethanol has led to other changes on American farms.

“People growing flour started growing corn,” Colburn added.

The reason is simple. The farmers were able to get tax incentives to turn their crops into fuel, and with that came the prospect for greater profits.

Small, independent restaurants on South Whidbey have their own strategies on how to navigate through the crisis.

“We’re expanding our market — buying local, offering healthier choices on the menu,” Colburn said.

Colburn also said that many restaurant owners bet on advertising and special events such as happy hours to draw in customers.

Sarkis said he’ll stay the course that has been working for him for years: Providing top-quality food.

“My idea has always been to get the best-quality materials,” he said. “I’m not gonna buy cheaper cheese. I’ve got to keep the quality up.”

Even with gas prices dropping slightly in recent weeks, there is no indication that restaurants will catch a break anytime soon.

Cooke said if people want local restaurants to continue being part of the community, they have to continue to patronize them.

“If you expect us to stay in business, understand that we have to raise our prices,” she said.

Colburn said that if the trend continues, the outlook is grim.

“I don’t know how the independent casual dining business will hang on.”

Michaela Marx Wheatley can be reached at 221-5300 or mmarxwheatley@southwhidbeyrecord.com.