Cafes have been forced to ration their avocado serves after a gap in harvest seasons caused supplies to fall and prices to spike.
The on-trend fruit is being sold for as much as $9 apiece in supermarkets.
Head chef of Cairns cafe Caffiend, Madeleine Crawford, said the cost of wholesale trays has also surged.
"This time last year they probably would have been down to $45-$50 a tray and now we're paying $95 a tray," she said.
Ms Crawford said smashed avo on toast is the outlet's most popular dish, along with sides of half an avocado.
The exorbitant cost of the fruit has led her to consider removing avocados from the menu altogether.
But for now she has opted for frugality.
"They're so hard to find in the supermarket anyway so I think our customers understand why."
Brisbane market wholesaler Peter Kedwell, from Persehouse Produce, said recent crops in New Zealand and Western Australia were lighter than average and both seasons ended earlier than usual.
He said that, coupled with Australia's continuing love affair with avocados, had upset the market balance.
"There's certainly a pent-up demand for them at the moment," he said.
Avocado 20 ways at a month-long pop-up cafe in Sydney
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Bumper north Queensland harvest to renew stocks
The next region to harvest avocados is far north Queensland.
The season generally starts in February, but Avocados Australia chief executive John Tyas said some growers were reporting an earlier start.
"Some small amounts of Shepard are already being delivered to market and higher quantities are expected to flow through from the first and second week of February, instead of the more usual mid-to-late February," he said.
The region is expecting a bumper crop, forecast to deliver 3.8 million trays, up from last year's 3.2 million.
Mr Kedwell said the growers who were first to pick would reap the benefits of the current shortage.
"I think it will start off at about $70-$80 a tray mark and after that it will come down to demand versus supply."
Fortunes shift for hail-hit grower
One of the far north Queensland operations set to reap the benefits is Serra Farming at Tolga, near Atherton.
Just a few months ago, its orchard was hit by a hail storm and it was feared the entire half-a-million-dollar crop would be lost due to pock-marks on the skins.
Have we reached peak avocado?
Farm manager Andrew Serra said buyers had now inspected his trees and most of the now-healed fruit would make it to market.
"We still lost probably 20 per cent of the crop and what's left there has damage on it," he said.
"But there should still be a fair amount of good, quality fruit available that's still marketable as premium grade fruit.
