Toast POS

Pros

Very easy to use, awesome user interface, very helpful customer support. Toast POS is great in almost every way!

Cons

Constant updates can cause confusion when menus and their items randomly move around sometimes. Some processes are complicated and difficult to understand or remember.

Pros

Toast was great! We used it in both our food truck and our brick and mortar. Having multiple screens was great and the convenience of the handhelds was great!

Cons

Their set up process is horrible. No support for the set up. Basically just have to find and then hire a guy to set it all up for you.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

TOAST POS is a very useful POS with great menus, good back end and reporting. We really like the integration to QBO using a third party tool. The startup and training is well done. The cost is double what we were paying before; however, the operational returns are well worth the cost.

Cons

TOAST support it very poor. We struggled to get payment terminals working correctly. Our customer facing team needs to deal with 3 to 5 walkup clients per minute. The team couldn't deal with troubleshooting terminals on the telephone with support and serving customers at the same time. The problem was solved by a technician looking at the transaction logs and sending a replacement terminal.

Our biggest challenge was changing banks. We had three attempts to get the new banking set up, and received confirmation that the request was completed. This process took more than two months and included email, telephone, and service tickets. When our payments to TOAST stopped due to this problem, we got more attention. Unfortunately, TOAST support often sent requests to the wrong people, ignored our emails and comments in the service tickets, and asked for the same information several times. The support frustration and extra work do not make up for the good product.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

I love the customization options!!! It’s so easy to add and publish new items on the go from the handheld devices or POS Stations.

Cons

Bugs. Lots of weird bugs and down time during dinner service!

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

Toast is the easies POS to use from front end to back end. They are the most compatible POS company for restaurants that I've had the experience working with.

Cons

Toast is growing fast and does seem to make some changes before doing any user research to see how the changes will affect the users who interact with it most. I'm happy to see them grow, but don't lose the user friendliness we all know and love!

Pros

It's ease of use. The plug and play setup.

Cons

There's not enough of a rollout. Lots of seminars and video conferencing but for my personality, I would've liked to have a rep show me some hands on traning.

Pros

The ultimate decision of why Toast was because at the time they were one of the only POS that integrated well with third party deliveries For that functionality it has been great and done what we needed it to do included wrapping up our payroll and scheduling into one system.

Cons

A few things. Toast is extremely complicated to get set up for some reason. Unlike other POS systems we have used in the past they do there PCI compliance through a router rather than through there software. However, you can not use their router for regular internet usage so the restaurant needs static IPs, one for Toast, one for everything else. This has made it so our hardware/infrastructure is extremely complicated and every time we have an issue we have to get our ISP, Toast, and now a IT Consultant involved to solve issues. Very time intensive and expensive.

Second, when the system has a disruption or even if you want to make certain changes you have to be at the store using the terminals. The backend is pretty useless and as a owner that doesn't live by my store this is extremely frustrating. When speaking to the reps and going through the demos it is pitched as if you can run and correct items from your house but the reality is you can only do a handful of things that are not impactful. For example, when credit card processing goes down, which happens often with them for some reason, you then have to key in cards (which Toast then charges higher merchant fees to do this) and then you have to get to the store and either wait until your slow or closed to fix the issue for the next day. There is nothing you can do on the backend, customer service can't help you, nope you have to be physically present manually doing everything on your own time with maybe someone on the phone to assist you .

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

Handheld and xtra chef are good products

Cons

There customer support is terrabile and if they approach you about payroll you better run.

Pros

Working with toast on the set up was great and easy. As we have grown their support has been solid. Not like other POS we have used in the past.

Cons

Reporting is eh and needs work...mostly data is there, just not obvious how to get what you need and they have to data dump and email it. Also, menus for serving customers can get a little much drilling sometimes 2-3 levels deep to do an 8 oz brown ale.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

As far as POS systems go, Toast is very user-friendly and highly customizable to your restaurant, bar, or venue. It is easy to set up and when changes need to be made, they are easy to do.

Cons

If you need customer support to resolve an issue, help with a feature you may be unfamiliar with or network support, Toast is very weak in this area. The customer service reps have minimal knowledge and are running off a script with no actual knowledge of the product. In the event they need to "escalate" your issue, the call is over at that point. The ability to speak with someone with the knowledge to help you with your issue promptly is practically non-existent. DO NOT use Toast Payroll services. They greatly messed up on tax reporting and nearly caused a significant increase in our IRS fees due to their incompetence.

Pros

when Toast is fully functional its great

Cons

Totally lack of ownership from Toast w/ regard to 3rd parties, Toast continually blames the 3rd parties for their own short falls, losing thousands per week because Toast does not know how to set up 3rd parties

Pros

We love Toast and its modern/easy to use setup. It is very easy for both our employees and customers to utilize. We love the online ordering features, the terminal setup and the customer service.

Cons

We are always left disappointed with the processing fees for credit cards. We wish we could price compare. This makes the system more expensive than it initially seems.

Pros

Toast has been seamless for us to use. Customer service is always top notch and the amount of mistakes in restaurant has decreased dramatically.

Cons

Online order was a bit tricky to set up and has been a little harder to implement.

Pros

Ease of using and training on. I have several younger and older employees and it is very easy to learn how to use the system. It is very simplified.

Cons

Not really anything. We have been really pleased with Toast hardware, customer support, product support and updates that we receive about new products and new equipment.

Pros

The ease of use for beginners is great. Very simple for new staff to start using with little training.

Cons

The install is very complicated with little help. Setup could be a bit better.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

Toast is designed in a way that you can learn how to use all the features within minutes. It is very user friendly, and dynamic. Great for both management and staff.

Cons

Once in a while, there will be a network wide crash that causes some entry errors, and occasionally some offline payment processing errors. Toast is usually great about fixing this.

Pros

It does the job, but not very well.Easily to have connection failure in the middle of service, not cleared issues...

Cons

pricing for what we get also integration can be expensive as well.

Pros

hand held ordering. tableside payments. and a few other things.

Cons

the worst support of any company i ever dealt with. I'm currently paying $75 dollars per month for integration. almost a month in still doesn't work. online ordering 3 weeks in still not functional, gift cards still not functional. I could go on and on.

Pros

Nothing to add - survey questions covered it all.,,

Cons

Would like payroll assistance available on weekends

Pros

POS ease or use. Accurate payment and reporting systems.

Cons

Extra, unnecessary features for our needs

Pros

There are so many POS devices in a Restaurant and Toast has one device that can take order, Create and Take Payments all in one and that is more easier for servers.

Cons

The Bar Order taking and Payment terminal should have autodiscovery that has reachable IP addresses in the same network to be able to link it easily.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

The ease of use for the servers is great. Very intuitive. Easy to back track if a mistake was made. Handhelds are excellent.

Cons

It took a little more time and effort to set-up the system, but that becomes a non-issue once everything is up and running.

Pros

Toast is a very easy-to-use and intuitive POS. It was a great change from a legacy platform, and a brief stint with another terrible platform. Team picks it up very quickly.

Cons

Wish the handhelds had a longer lifespan. We spent a lot of money on them just prior to covid, then shut down for more than a year. Upon reopening many of them had issues with card readers, batteries and a new model was released. Wound up being many thousands of dollars spent only to be on the cusp of needing to replace them all.Wish there was more flexibility with an enterprise system. It would be nice to have more local customization while maintaining a brand database.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Toast POS

Pros

Contactless payments are a huge perk, it's easy to use, was simple to figure out the portable handhelds for events, and it's overall just an efficient option.

Cons

I didn't love the fees, and the service could be inconsistent at times. I do like that the fees are flexible so that you only use what you pay for, but you are paying marked up feeds. We compared Toast with Zettle and some other POS options and these issues weren't unique to Toast though.

Pros

This is one of the best systems to train new staff on it's very user friendly it has the test mode and it's also easy for inputting and creating a new menu

Cons

Every time that you sign in to toast from say your mobile phone or also a laptop you have the recaptcha but it says that you are remembered but you said you still have to go through all of the steps to make sure that it's you sometimes that takes a little bit more time than you want it to

Pros

Ease of implementation, interface, and reporting. Very functional if you take the time to learn the system. TOAST central database has lots of e-learning and resources at your fingertips. Like how many integration partners there are.

Cons

Customer support is lacking. Phone support is painful, Follow up by assigned managers is one sided. Most companies are better of hiring TOAST independent contractors to set up and manage their systems. TOAST fees including credit card processing fees are very high. Lastly there has been a very big known and detrimental outages

Pros

It was supposed ti be easy. It is not for a small business. Be ready to be a full tech ex0ert with zero help.

Cons

I gave a rep a low review. They took me off my account and I could not access my own business for more than 20 hours. I was on the phone for 34 minutes and not one person could figure out how to reinstate my account. But you better know they still charged my account even though I had zero access. This was live during my business hours. Toast admitted it was their own employee who did this. I'm going to keep posting this for every small business owner to see. We cannot allow these tech companies this power.

Pros

The app works well and it's fairly easy to use, although they forced an update recently that made the system worse.

Cons

We use toast at our Food Truck in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We tried integrating doordash into toast and when we visited the shop on Toast it was locked and we were unable to add the integration. After reaching out to our onboarding contact [sensitive content hidden] who was unable to resolve the issue and directed us to Customer Care. After contacting customer care they gave us the runaround yet again ultimately telling us it was not a billing hold but a hold placed by the onboarding team. This hold has persisted now for 5 days with 0 resolution or support from Toast, they have dropped the ball completely on us. We expressed we had an advertisement running for several days that we spent money on to promote that we were on doordash and that money has now been wasted, not to mention the potential sales we have lost.

Toast's support has been horrendous. If I knew this was going to be the case we would have never gone with toast.

Pros

Very user Friendly, easy to update menus and add people.

Cons

They constantly changing design do not like new designs.

Pros

On the fly menu changes were accessible, the UI was fairly intuitive.

Cons

We always dread seeing an update. The product's stability is inconsistent.

Pros

Robust platform that allows multiple integrations.

Cons

Complete lack of support and service. Just "lost" 5,000 loyalty emails---ooops, sorry? They also nickel and dime you for everything you want to connect.

Pros

Toast is user friendly, both on the front end and back end. Making changes on the fly is simple too!

Cons

Having to hit update so many times. This was a system update and took some learning. My employees feel like they have to push too make buttons to get to the check. Used to be more simple when we first started using toast. Some of the buttons on the screen are also tiny.

Pros

The best thing about Toast is the ease of use. Menu screens are easy to read and navigate and quickly enter orders. Back end is easy to manage.

Cons

The customer service when you call in for issues is not great. I had 2 credit card readers down and it took over 2 hours and 2 phone calls to convince support that they were indeed bad. Lots of testing when finally I demanded replacement readers for mine which were still under warranty and they finally gave in. Too much time for that small issue.

Pros

Very versatile. Allows for easy use as all applications are tablet and app based. Easily accessible information and editing from smart phone, computer and other hardware.

Cons

Some service outages (credit card processing) and difficult programming on the back end. Some technical issues and support isn't always able to figure it out at the first level.

Pros

I did like the functionality but the service is so bad, it does not matter how good the software is.

Cons

Customer service, Toast adding billable products and never taking them off because you cannot get a hold of customer service.

Pros

User interface is easy. I can find what I am looking for quickly.

Cons

Can be confused with other options and new updates are hard to confirm

Pros

if I can give O star I will the suck your money out .

Cons

I order product the messed up my order and charge me and have another the send me and charge me for the sand me label after three day sen the product back after milion call and email and no supervisor to talk and if you do he can Resolve anything and not get my credit back till after 28 days this is the most Ridiculous thing I ever hear you lost me as a customer and you'r not supporting Restarant business your there for take advantage of small business!!!!

Pros

It was fairly simple to use without any knowledge of the software beforehand

Cons

It can often be very glitchy and will crash out

Pros

It's relatively easy to use and set up. Being able to adjust prices and buttons on the fly is helpful, as well as color coding them.

Cons

It can be slow and difficult to search for items.

Pros

How easy it is to set up and categorize. Also see sales report and track inventory.

Cons

When it freezes, glitches, or has an issue processing payments.

Pros

Toast is incredibly easy to use for the front of house, back of house, and the back office. The ease of reporting makes my life so much easier. Utilizing the handheld system helps my staff turn tables faster and make less mistakes.

Cons

We have a hard time integrating with InforHMS and sometimes the integration with Resy malfunctions. The system upgrades and there is no warning, which can be difficult to navigate at first.

Pros

It is very easy to use and great for quick service

Cons

Sometime the handhelds cant disconnect really easily.

Pros

The pos screen setup is good Easy to do orders

Cons

Customer service! I was told during the sign up process I would be able to do certain things (these thing

Pros

Robust and Versatile POS for full service restaurant. Perfect for full service restaurant. it does have some minor hiccups. Probably the best POS on the market. Integrates well w/ Open Table. Good support w/ little wait time most time.

Cons

Toast offers many useful integration except One major NO NO Add-on is Toast Payroll - it's a disaster. totally user unfriendly. clumsy, many non-sense system questions that cause confusion, lack of even the simplest and most basic yet required reporting. Even it's nice to have the time cards get carried over automatically, you would be better off using 3rd party time management and payroll app.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Toast POS

Pros

Easy daily use and modifier options and report options. We had to submit an insurance claim and everything requested was available through Toast.

Cons

Hit/miss with customer service. You either get someone excellent that can walk you through the issue or someone with no clue that keeps you on the phone rather than transferring to someone who can assist.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Simple and easy to integrate into my workplace's numerous departments, Toast POS offers a user friendly platform to build an inventory into with the option to edit the information therein whenever required, even in real time when alterations are needed to complete a guest's order. Toast POS has a sharp and clean visual design that utilizes an equally well developed workplace layout sure to please no matter what industry you're part of.

Cons

A small setback I've noticed is the required input of a guest's name or information to initiate the 'tap to pay' option. There is a button to 'skip' this input, however if guest recall is pertinent to completing an order then the name or number attached to the order is required. I would like to see the guest's digital pay pad screen offer the ability to input a name or number if only to make interactions conclude in a quicker, more proficient manner.

Pros

Self-Install was a little bit complicated but Toast Support was very helpful. The interface is very intuitive and overall simple to follow and teach. Some financial reports don;t show exactly what we'd like, but Toast Support is helping us create custom reports for everything we need.

Cons

Setting up the menu and revenue centers, especially chaging the revenue centers has been less simple than I'd like.

Pros

It has many comparable features that I was used to with the Dominos Pizza PULSE system.

Cons

The mobile access to data that has since been solved with the IOS app. I am really looking forward to the andriod version.

Pros

The online access is the most important. Being able to make changes in real time with no service interruptions.

Cons

I wish I could process payments for customers on the desktop version. Same for gift cards sales.

Alternatives Considered