Toast POS Reviews

Pros

One stop shop plug and play solution! I was not interested in having to switch between systems and wanted easy reporting across the business.

Cons

Takes a while to learn all the functionality but worth it once learned. Although it’s not a problem with the software itself, either a better hard copy training manual or disk would be helpful.

Alternatives Considered

Time Tracker and NCR Aloha

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

More robust and offered more scale as we grow to keep everything on one platform.

Pros

The real time data. The ease to change anything form my phone. use of the handhelds really helps in steps of service.

Cons

I wish there was a better way to manage tip outs.

Pros

Lots of functionality, integration with other software, and versatility. It's constantly evolving and improving.

Cons

Not user friendly at all from a back office perspective, slow, limited support except for FAQs/videos.

Pros

It is so easy to make changes & push them to the terminals. Easy to manage from home rather than having to be onsite all the time. Credit card payments are received in a timely manner & customer service has always taken great care of us. Also a great point is that you can keep running when the internet goes down. It's not perfect, but it's the best that we've seen.

Cons

Servers complain that when you close the credit card orders that you have to enter your POS number again. I complain because I can't see more than 24 months of information and can only see it 6 months at a time. I wish that sales were assigned to the time frame they were purchased at and not at the time that the ticket was opened.

Pros

Easy to use. New employees catch on quickly.

Cons

Slow on credit card processing. I don’t like having to wait until Monday for my revenue to come in.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Easy to use and deal on products.

Pros

Software is intuitive and easy to navigate. Customer Service people ramp up quickly.

Cons

Focused almost exclusively on table service restaurants. Features for quick service need to be enhanced. Improvements need to be made in the area of Order management and Throttling in the Quick Service environment.

Alternatives Considered

NCR Aloha

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Aloha was fraught with software and hardware glitches that caused significant downtime. NCR/Aloha is behind in tech advances. Cloud, Kiosk, online ordering. Support was horrible.

Switched From

NCR Aloha

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Existing customers reported few hardware/software failures. Toast seems to be vested in new technologies.

Pros

Ease of use, all the features that are available.

Cons

I was used to a POS company that would send IT support to my location to help resolve issues. Toast does not provide this, but does provide phone support to help walk you through it. My only negative to the phone support is that it is sometimes difficult to get through to someone

Pros

The ever evolving addition of modules and ease of use. Simplifies our line operations and enables us to offer a loyalty program and gift cards that a small business would be challenged to offer on our own

Cons

Toast is the simplest POS system I have ever used.

Pros

I do not like it and if I owned my own restaurant I will not use TOAST nor recommend it.

Cons

It is not easy to use nor to maneuver - just not a end user friendly

Pros

The ability to review sales and labor from anywhere.

Cons

The labor does not update live to the minute online. If you are having to check labor from your phone or PC you have to drill down into the labor tab to get live data.

Pros

Very easy to use and make on the fly changes

Cons

The constant Nickel & Dimming! I have multiple restaurants and its so frustrating that each one has different pricing. I have had toast for over 5 years now and it constantly has changed so much so fast that the customer service line employees have no idea how to get things done. If you power on and off and it does not work you will have to wait for someone to call you back that has higher credentials.

Also I have had their special router go out 2x now (funny just a week after warranty both times) and my restaurant could no longer use the POS and they could care less. Its been 1 week and still no replacement. Such a shame their customer service is so bad and it just feels like a money grab at times.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

AT the time it was the only POS that could continue to accept CC when the internet went down. Now that many offers this, we are currently looking at other alternative companies.

Pros

I love that Toast supports their product. You can call and get someone on the line that will help you answer your questions. They also provide the hardware necessary to run their software. They are constantly updating their software to meet the needs of their users and are staying current with the technology. One option that is particularly useful to us is printing individual labels for each shake. In other words, we could have a bus of individuals come to our restaurant, and we need to print individual labels on each shake to identify what is in the shake so that it gets to the right person. In the past, we had to individually write on each cup.

Cons

The most difficult part to swallow is the fact that you have a monthly payment for the software--even if you are a seasonal business and only open for less than half the year. Toast will make some concessions for that, but it still seems costly since our other solution we used was free and pretty much did everything we needed short of printing individual labels for the shakes.

Alternatives Considered

Square for Retail

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

We chose Toast over Square because of: 1. Dedicated support 2. Individual labels for each shake 3. Text notifications to customer when their food is done 4. More reliable KDS (Kitchen Display Systems) 5. Much larger and more functional KDS screens

Pros

The ease of setting up menus and distributing orders to prep stations and expeditors.

Cons

The blindspots in the functionality with respect to complex operations like ours.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale, Lightspeed POS and Revel Systems

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Old system was outdated and couldn't handle the complexity of our operation.

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Best suite of functionality for the price point, and the most modern infrastructure.

Pros

Easy to use, easy to set up different stations (bar, kitchen, prep), very little goes wrong day to day

Cons

I've stopped contacting customer service because, most often, I know more about the system than they do. Multiple times I've called or chatted, asking for some feature to be implemented to be told that it can't be done; only to find, after some detective work by me, that it can, in fact, be done.

Alternatives Considered

Square Payments

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Cost, ease of use, integration of online ordering

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Cost, ease of use, integration of online ordering

Pros

The hardware is nice. Having a handheld order taker is very nice. Also saving some paper with people signing the handheld device, but there are some issues as well. If there is an issue, it is nice to have a US based support center..

Cons

Well, You can not add an auto charge of 3% if a person is using a credit card unless you manually add it, the kitchen display has glitches, an order with 5 things will send a text alert for each item rather than the entire order when finished. I was also promised that the credit cards would not cost more, they would match or beet what I had in the past, and that is not ringing true to the tune of around 100 ish a month.... Took 4 months to get someone to finally review the credit card charges only for him to “shine me on” which is frustrating to a business owner. I have also had a few extremely good feature requests that I know other restaurants would use, like using the hand held to present the final bill rather than printing a receipt... But honestly there is no way to know if anyone has herd you, if anything will happen or if anyone cares... Also you can’t have pictures in the POS.. having pictures as well as having descriptions and a recipe would be great.. but no options...

Pros

*user friendly
*online reporting accessible from anywhere
*online food ordering
*easy to add menu items

Cons

*excessive hold times to reach support, ie: more than one hour and no way to email support anymore (as was the previous system.)
*no way to reach support via email, even when Toast emails a restaurant, the restaurant can't reply because the email gets bounced back...instead you have to get off email, find a computer, log in and navigate to support, find the case and respond there. This is a big problem when managers are not on site at the restaurant but still managing a support issue.
*support cases opened on their online platform are not addressed and no one calls restaurant to resolve
*No way to email a receipt to a guest until AFTER they have paid and the transaction is over...a big problem for CATERING needing preapproval.
*Upsell feature with online ordering has Toast making strange pairings. For example, the restaurant guest orders a breakfast sandwich and Toast suggest an upsell of a bottle of salad dressing (instead of a breakfast side)! Only Toast can control the upsell so the restaurant can't promote the items it wants to promote.
*Handheld device does NOT support ApplePay.
*ApplePay on POS terminal is additional. Actually, a lot of things with Toast cost more money than what sales tells you up front.
*No way to comp a gift card online and email it to a guest from Toast Central online.
*No way to offer a promo code on your online gift card sales....like during the holidays when you want to offer gift cards for a certain percentage off the regular price.

Pros

Reports and analysis is so good and it's so user-friendly and so easy to learn and train for employees.

Cons

They are so busy when it comes to customer service but if you wait for them they definitely fix your issue but the problem is they're super busy for calls. But honestly for the past w years I had to call them like 2 times and the system worked so good all the time.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Better options on toast

Switched From

Clovers

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Options and accuracy also the reports

Pros

The UI is pretty intuitive and the reporting is very solid.

Cons

It failed constantly. They're charging me anyway.

Pros

This software is incredibly user friendly. Anyone can learn how to use all the functions of Toast if they're willing to go through the plentiful help articles and/or watch the videos. Toast is easy to edit, easy to organize, and the app works much better than other mobile apps we've used for our coffee shop. The reporting options are very helpful, managing active employees, time entries, and menu organization is all very simple!

Cons

If I could change anything, it would be me to make absolutely everything 100% customizable. The only complaint I've ever had with Toast is there are a few things over the years we've wanted to tailor specifically for our business and its locations, but haven't had the ability via Toast. However, there are new features being added consistently, so I have no doubts that the Toast team is committed to making the software as best as it can possibly be.

Pros

Toast software is updated. Constantly, I find this refreshing and knowing that new features and securities are always top of mind from the engineers, we constantly submit future requests to help provide valuable input on the usefulness in the marketplace.

Cons

Often times, toast engineers, create features are pathways to solve issues, and Toast could do a better job at leading the operators know that these features exist, and the problem-solving is built-in

Alternatives Considered

Aloha Cloud, TouchBistro and SpotOn

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Functionality, reliability, and features

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Price features and trust

Pros

Great analytics but the on boarding and follow up customer service is embarrassing.

Cons

I've been trying to set up online ordering for weeks now. It's been counting a lot of problems because of the basic lack of customer support. They are responsive but spend a lot of time telling you how they understand where you're coming from without actually solving any problems. It got so ridiculous that I asked a basic question about how toast had approved a test transaction outside of the 5 mile delivery radius and what happens if a customer did this. The agent I was poking with actually told me that she didn't know what would happen, or even if those delivery services was functional right now. I asked her frank advice as to whether or not I could trust the system I if I turned it on and she said she didn't know. I was supposed to receive a follow up call from a manager this morning and have now been waiting by my phone for two hours past the appointed time. Also, I was actually charged a fee for setting up online ordering when I first got the system. Just embarrassing.

Pros

I was hired to help customize, train, and implement this new software at a friends restaurant. I have worked with a few different POS systems and this was by far the most user friendly. Easy to customize their menus and check preferences. Easy to update if we figured out how we originally entered in an item needed to be changed. Cloud based so when not on sight I was able to fix remotely when not at the restaurant. Also the handheld option is great for taking orders and splitting checks on the fly. Also were able to implement gift cards with the new system.

Cons

No real cons. The only downside was the initial few days after switching for the staff to get used to it.

Pros

User friendly and efficient. That pretty much sums it up but they said my response was too short.

Cons

Many additional charges after purchase
Reports cannot be easily pulled for long date ranges
LACKING IN CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Alternatives Considered

Clover

Switched From

NCR Aloha and POSitouch

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Price point and referral

Pros

Toast has been a serious upgrade to our establishment. It is very user friendly and operates off a more "in the times" type of software than some other very outdated POS systems. All of their staff is friendly. The third party integrations are endless and offer something for all kinds of businesses. Online ordering and the ability to have an unofficial doordash partnership is very helpful and easy to use.

Cons

Support is not always the most efficient or informative. We often find where they simply cannot help us during odd inquiries or glitches, or we get multiple answers from different people. We also would like to see toast work on a table management and waitlist system that is actually functional for the restaurant. Currently, they offer third party table management integrations, but we have done trials with a few and none have quite what we are looking for.

Pros

The analytics and reporting are fantastic. Getting Toast go's for your servers allowed me to cut back on server staff and the servers make more money because they can turn 3 times as many tables

Cons

Their set up map for delivery is garbage, if you plan on having delivery go with a different system. They have been telling me for 3 years they are going to upgrade and instead we have 3rd party integration with delivery services which are way over priced.