Rainfall Down, Steak Prices Up

Prices on steakhouse menus are higher than they were three years ago, and the drought that’s devastated corn crops in the Midwest will only push them higher. “We think the price rise is yet to come,” says Amy Rubenstein, an owner at Peter Luger in Brooklyn, who’s seen the cost of the prime New York strip steak she buys rise 11 percent this year and 45 percent since 2010.

Photographs by (clockwise from top) Stephen St. John/National Geographic/Getty Images; Thom Desanto/Stockfood; Philip Webb/BBC Food/ZUMA Press; David Murray/Dorling Kindersley; Keller&Keller/Stockfood; Schieren/Stockfood; Tom Grundy/Alamy; UIG/Getty Images

Data: USDA; Livestock Marketing Information Center; Urner Barry, Inc.