Toast Debuts Enhanced Contactless Suite

Toast launched an enhanced suite of contactless and guest-facing solutions to help restaurateurs reimagine operations and reduce overhead as they rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toast debuted updates to its Toast Order & Pay solution, including pre-authorization tabs and group ordering. Designed to meet the ever-increasing demand for contactless solutions, Toast Order & Pay enables guests to order and pay in a restaurant via smartphone. By streamlining the transactional components of traditional service, restaurateurs delight the 86 percent of guests for whom paying at the table from their own device is an important factor in their future dining experience.

Introducing Pre-authorization and Group Ordering

Pre-authorization tabs: enable a guest to start a tab, pre-authorize a credit card from their own device, and begin ordering their meal. This information seamlessly carries over to the full restaurant ecosystem and can be updated and augmented from the POS or Toast Go™ mobile payment device — another industry-first innovation — providing flexibility to shift between guest-led and server-led ordering, while reducing unpaid walkouts.

Group ordering: allows guests to collaboratively add items to one order from their own devices and send the order to the kitchen on one check, with a guest name on every item so servers know exactly who each item is for.

“Toast Order & Pay increased our bottom line up to 10 percent; post-COVID that translates to $2.5M in additional annual income for our business,” said Kevin Healy, owner and operator of HOUSEpitality Restaurant Group that operates eight full service restaurants in the Richmond, VA area. “Additionally, almost every one of our hourly employees is making 25-30 percent more this year than they were last year. Considering we experienced a 30 percent sales decline due to the pandemic, being able to give our staff a significant raise during this time is groundbreaking.”

Introducing Estimated Sales Reports, Apple Pay, and Customizable Loyalty Points

Toast’s integrated guest solutions work better together to allow restaurateurs to delight guests with a frictionless experience both online and offline, run their restaurant efficiently with integrated, turnkey solutions, and improve marketing outreach to keep guests coming back. 

• Estimated sales reports for Toast Marketing

• Apple Pay available across Toast Online Ordering and Toast TakeOut app

• Customizable bonus points for Toast Loyalty

Oscar Vasquez, founder of Oscar’s Authentic Mexican Grill in Olathe, Kansas said, “One of my favorite features about Toast Loyalty is the ability to offer double or triple points during slower times of the week. On our first promoted double point Tuesday, we saw a 100 percent increase in sales over previous Tuesdays; we try to do double points during times we are not as busy. Toast Email Marketing and Loyalty made our restaurant a lot busier than we would be otherwise.”

Restaurant owners and operators can learn more about Toast and schedule a personalized demo here.