DALLAS — With food inflation at its highest level in 17 years, many diners are seeing something on the menu they don’t like: higher prices.

On the menu of one popular North Texas chain, seafood tacos went from $9.29 to $9.69.

Want the rib-eye steak? That’s $12.49, up from $11.99, a 50-cent hike.

Two Rows, a Dallas-based restaurant chain, recently raised its prices by five to ten percent. “When you raise prices, you've got to raise your standard and your quality of product,” said restaurant owner Baine Brooks.

So restaurateurs are trying to give their customers more bang for the buck by improving service. One way is to have managers spend more time in the dining area.

Other restaurants are quietly shrinking their portions and using old standby tricks like smaller plates and heavier forks to make it seem like there’s more food.

And restaurants are also changing up their menus — putting high-profit items in the top right hand corner, where customers tend to look first.

Chef Randy Burks is trying to slice food costs at his Frisco restaurant. He cuts expensive steaks himself to avoid waste, and is putting cost-effective items on the menu, like tilapia.

“We just try to think new, innovative, menu items that are still profitable for us,” Burks said.

Still, many diners like Susan Vujovich are scaling back how often they go out to eat. “Definitely, the prices have been going up,” she said.

And with prices expected to spike even more next year, eating out is a treat that is becoming hard for many to swallow.

E-mail jbetz@wfaa.com