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Toast POS System Review

Toast is designed for restaurants, integrating all of its technology components into one place to provide a great and effective sales proposition that will simplify your restaurant management. With the recent release of Toast Payroll & Team Management, Toast offers a complete business solution.

Pros

Easy to use and customizable Android tablets

Cons

Jeff Good, Managing Partner at Broad Street and President of Mangia Bene Inc.

“We’ve saved 15% to 20% annually by not paying for multiple platforms… when I bought it, we would have saved a a few thousand dollars just by moving everything to Toast Payroll…”

John Rhodes, CEO of Alto Pizza Kitchen and Bar

“Without Toast, it would have been much harder to achieve the volume we see at lunch. We could do 100 to 200 entries in a few hours. The kitchen screens have helped us achieve that level of service.”

Brad Gillis, Co-Founder of Homegrown

How It Works

Toast is a completely web-based platform, with all information stored in the cloud. A local area network (LAN) is required for customer functionality. All point-of-sale data, primarily menus and local settings, is downloaded and stored on separate connected devices. This allows your point-of-sale system to function even if your broadband connection is interrupted.

Wi-Fi is not required, as the devices are connected at the point of sale. However, there are handheld tablets that require Wi-Fi. Printing is done over the local network. In the event of a service outage, all credit card transactions are queued locally and processed in batches when connectivity is restored.

The basic hardware package offered is the terminal package, which includes a receipt printer, tablet, stand, and credit card reader, while additional kitchen routers and printers are sold separately. You can also purchase a mobile device or handheld tablet package that allows you to order and pay right at the table.

 

 

Toast does not use iOS integration, but works with Android. For their hardware packages, they offer Elo tablets that their operations team pre-installs and configures. This way, all customers have official Toast equipment that provides high-quality technical support in case of any issues.

Reporting

A wide range of reports are available, from standard sales reports to reports on labor, product mix, tips, and more.

Summary reports are the most comprehensive and include net sales, tips, table turnover, all service types full analytics and guest count. It’s a scannable dashboard that provides a high-level view of a manager’s or owner’s needs when they’re too busy to quickly review individual reports. If you want to drill down into any metric, you can do so with a simple tap.

 

Ease of Use

Even if you didn’t have a Toast representative to help you with setup and training, this system would be very easy to learn. Despite the incredible variety of features built into Toast, you can master enough to get your business up and running in a matter of hours. It’s not difficult to learn, and the first 30-60 minutes of training will go a long way in getting you up and running, even without any technical knowledge.

Cost and Contracts

Toast’s starter package is free and ideal for small restaurants that only need one or two terminals. The basic package, which includes online services like digital ordering and the Toast Takeout app, starts at $165 per month. There are also pricing plans, but you’ll need to call a Toast representative.

 

This is where you need to consider the return on investment of the product and decide if operating more efficiently with such a powerful platform will help you run a cleaner facility, turn tables faster, and therefore pay for itself. If you can get it to work right, the price isn’t that bad.

 

 

For restaurants that anticipate needing more than 6 terminals, we recommend speaking with a representative about customized pricing based on volume.

Features and Add-ons

The number of features included in Toast is surprising, considering the simplicity of the interface and intuitive design. For example:

What does Toast payroll and team management offer?

 

 

 

Bottom Line

Toast is a comprehensive POS system for restaurants that lets you manage your entire restaurant from a single interface. Its feature-rich platform impresses with everything and works with Android instead of iOS. This makes it more affordable and versatile, and a great option for restaurants that prefer not to invest in Apple products.

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