Toast

(NYSE: TOST · $31.32 ▲ 0.0%) Toast is a point-of-sale (POS) company whose platform for restaurateurs and retailers brings together hardware, software, AI and financial technology. The company says its POS is used at 180,000 locations. POS systems for restaurants and shops have largely moved from standalone cash registers to connected platforms that link ordering, payments, staffing and reporting.

Toast describes its POS as built for peak volume, slim margins and complexity at scale, with what it calls 1,000 little features for make-or-break moments. Its products include the Flex POS and the Toast Go 3 handheld, along with a kitchen display system, commission-free online ordering and integrated, PCI-compliant payments. Bundling payment processing with POS software is a common model in this market: vendors earn recurring processing revenue, while operators manage sales and payments in a single system. The company also offers marketing tools covering SMS, email, loyalty and gift cards, plus payroll, remote clock-in and tip distribution for staff. Toast IQ, an AI assistant included at no additional cost, connects data and workflows across an operator's business, and integrations with more than 300 partners extend the platform.

Toast offers tailored features for a wide range of businesses, including full-service, quick-service, fast-casual and fine-dining restaurants, bars, pizzerias, cafes, food trucks, drive-thrus, hotels and enterprise groups, along with retailers such as bottle shops, convenience stores, grocers and butcher shops. Restaurants and retailers ask different things of a POS system: restaurants rely on table management, kitchen coordination and tipping, while shops lean more on product catalogs, barcode scanning and inventory. Beyond its products, Toast runs a social impact arm, Toast.org, founded to enrich the food experience for all, and the company's employees call themselves Toasters.