Toast Introduces Contactless Tools For Restaurant POS Payments

The Boston-headquartered point-of-sale (POS) and restaurant management platform Toast is launching a suite of contactless tools to help eateries boost revenue, the company said in a press release on Tuesday (April 13).

The guest-facing solutions are designed to help restaurant owners revamp operations with the goal of slashing overhead. The recent upgrades to Toast Order & Pay include options for pre-authorization and group orders.

The company’s move is in response to a demand for contactless solutions, aiming to give guests a variety of alternatives and streamline the ordering and payment process. A recent study showed that 86 percent of consumers ordering in or out for meals want to complete payment from their own digital devices.

“Guest behaviors are changing faster than ever in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic; ordering and paying for food via smartphone might have felt foreign to some a few years ago. Today, many people expect this convenience in an effort to reduce contact with others and increase efficiency,” said Aman Narang, president and co-founder of Toast. Narang added that the company’s latest solutions have worked to meet the “dramatic shift” in addressing consumers’ current needs and shopping preferences.

The company has launched numerous features to further connect people to restaurant offerings. One of its goals was to give diners “a remote control to the restaurant in their pocket,” Narang noted. Another aim is to help restaurateurs extend maximum hospitality to their guests while also assisting those business owners in achieving financial success for themselves and their employees.

Advances in restaurant technology (ResTech), accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, have helped to boost the industry’s future advancement. Toast’s secondary share offering in November 2020 gave the company an estimated $8 billion valuation. The company has since been looking toward an initial public offering (IPO) in 2021 that could value the company $20 billion.