Toast to Add AI-Based Benchmarking Feature to Restaurant Management Suite

Toast has launched its Restaurant Management Suite with new features for multi-unit, enterprise brands.

These features join the company’s cloud-based digital technology platform that is built for restaurants of all sizes and is used in more than 100,000 restaurant locations, the company said in a Thursday (April 11) press release.

“To succeed in today’s competitive environment, enterprise operators need intuitive tools and readily available insights at the location and corporate levels to help them manage administrative complexity and make the right decisions as they grow,” Steve Fredette, president and co-founder of Toast, said in the release.

“The size and diversity of our customer base give Toast unique insights into what operational excellence and top-notch performance look like across the industry,” Fredette added.

One of the features added to the Restaurant Management Suite is an improved Multi-Location Management tool that enables leaders to use an expanded list of key performance metrics to compare their brand’s different locations, according to the release.

The software suite also includes an enhanced Menu Manager and Publishing Center that helps restaurant brands’ teams manage their menus across locations, the release said. For example, this feature enables them to schedule menu items and price changes for the future and to make changes across multiple locations.

A new feature that Toast has made available to select users and plans to make generally available soon is Benchmarking, per the release. This artificial intelligence (AI)-based tool will enable leaders to compare the performance of their restaurants and menu categories against aggregated data from other restaurants that use the Toast platform.

“These tools are designed to help operators more easily identify possible opportunities to drive revenue through things like new menu items, limited-time offers or updated pricing,” the press release said.

Toast reported in February that it added more than 6,000 new restaurant locations in the last quarter and expects to add 5,500 in the current quarter.

Many firms want a single system with a single back end that they can use to track and manage all facets of their operations, Toast CEO Aman Narang said Feb. 15 during the company’s quarterly earnings call.