HOUSTON -- The next time you eat out you could be paying a lot more now that restaurants are serving up steeper prices for rice.

And just like some things seem to go hand in hand, at Treebeards on Market Square it’s red beans and rice. 

In fact, it’s clear rice is not just on the menu, it’s on people’s minds.

“We haven’t been eating rice that much lately.  It’s so expensive. Every time I go it’s gone up a couple of pennies,” Treebeards customer Angela Murray said.

And the price for rice keeps going up.

“We just looked at our invoices from today’s purchases and it went up probably about 10 percent, and that’s substantial for a place like this because we sell so much rice.  But we’re going to feel it soon, probably have to adjust our prices one more time,” Treebeards co-owner Jamie Mize said.  

But this isn’t the first time they’ll have to do that.

“We’ve done it three times in the last 12 months,” Mize said.

The world supply hasn’t changed significantly, but demand has. The spike in the demand for rice is fueled largely by fear of a global food shortage. 

As a result prices are higher, but then again prices are higher across the board prompting demonstrations in Egypt and food riots in Haiti.  Also prompting one California restaurant to hoard a years worth of rice in its basement.

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Restaurants are having to adjust their prices due to the increasing price of the American staple.

“That’s really a shame because you hate to see people stockpile needlessly when there are places that actually need the product, need the rice,” Carl Walker with the Greater Houston Restaurant Association said.

And while Houston is a far cry from Haiti, restaurateurs expect to feel the pinch, although a significantly less painful one than other parts of the world.