So You Want to Write for the Toast Blog?

Here's what you need to know.

The Toast Restaurant Management Blog is an industry-leading publication that serves up fresh, bite-sized content daily for restaurant owners, operators, and managers.

We aim to provide restaurant leaders around the world with actionable advice, reliable resources, and innovative approaches to restaurant management, marketing, metrics, technology, trends, and more, enabling them to do what they love, delight guests, and thrive in today's competitive restaurant landscape.

We're always on the hunt for new ideas, authors, and perspectives to feature on the blog. Please read our writing guidelines in full below; if you're interested in writing for Toast and would like to pitch the blog's editorial team, click here to fill out our submission form.

The Writing Guidelines

The TRMB Team is interested in hearing pitches that adhere to the following categories:

  • Restaurant Management
  • Restaurant Metrics
  • Restaurant Marketing
  • Staffing & Labor
  • Menu Management & Optimization
  • Restaurant Technology
  • Industry News & Trends

Here are our writing requirements:

  • The post must be original content. We will not republish anything that's been published elsewhere.
  • The article must reflect the writing style of the Toast Blog. We aim to be casual with a flair for fun and never talk down at our audience. Every post that goes live on the blog is a reflection of our team and greater organization; as such, we will only publish the highest quality writing.
  • Each post must use headings to organize the content.
  • Posts must be a minimum of 1,000 words.
  • No more than 1-2 outbound links to your company's website in the body of the post.
  • We will need a headshot, bio, and links to any social networks or websites you would want to include.
  • Proper attribution of data, quotations, and outside content referenced in the article.
  • Willingness to share the article once it's published across your networks - social media, email marketing, etc.

What We Can't Accept

There are some things we do not accept on the Toast blog:

  • Anything that's been covered on our blog before. Please do a search of our site before submitting your article pitches.
  • Anything that may be construed as a link-building scheme.
  • Anything that's too promotional for your company or organization.
  • Anything that's offensive or inaccurate.
  • Anything that's overly critical of individuals or restaurants.

Examples of Great Guest Blogs

The best guest blogs are how-to's, guides, lists, controversial opinions, industry trends, and/or visual posts. Here are three examples of great guest blogs, and why they performed well:

  • The 5 Real Reasons You're Losing Restaurant Staff - Regular contributor and restaurant consultant Donald Burns took an interesting issue - employee turnover - and flipped it on its head by offering original ideas as to why people are leaving their jobs in the restaurant industry. For many people in the industry, this post struck home, because of Donald's focus on poor leadership. He also included outbound links to relevant products and articles as well as bullet points and headings to make the post easier to read.
  • 5 Restaurant Customer Complaints on Social Media - As a marketing manager at a social media company, Kristen Ciccolini could have sent over an overly promotional post. However, she didn't; instead, she gave real advice for how to respond to customer complaints on social media. As a result, the post has performed well organically; it's ranking for many relevant keywords.
  • The Restaurant Guide to Google My Business & Local Search - David Kutcher's comprehensive guide / case study of how restaurants can use Google My Business to acquire more customers offered restaurateurs a technical answer to how to use Google My Business. It answers pretty much every question a reader might have, and provides clear-cut action items. It also includes many pertinent visuals.

The Blog Post Submission Process

If you feel your pitch meets the above guidelines, click here to submit it to the TRMB editorial team. After you have completed the form, you will hear from a member of our team with next steps, including a tentative deadline and more detailed writing instructions.

How to Become a Regular Contributor to The Toast Restaurant Management Blog

Some guest bloggers become regular contributors on a monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly basis. However, those who want to become a regular contributor must first submit a guest blog. They will then be evaluated based on:

  • The amount of views to the post
  • The amount of subscribers that post accrues
  • The amount of social shares about that post

If that post, as a trial run for this contributor, performs better than average in these categories, we will ask the guest blogger if he or she is interested in contributing content on a regular basis.

The Fine Print

  • Submissions must meet the Toast blogging team's quality standards in order to get published.
  • We cannot allow you to republish your guest post to your own blog, LinkedIn, or Medium.
  • The Toast blogging team reserves the right to edit and adapt your guest blog content and title as we see fit, and update it in the future for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
  • Toast reserves the right to include calls-to-action and links to Toast content, including but not limited to blog posts, email newsletters, ebooks, and other downloadable content.
  • We're flattered you want to write for us, but to preserve our credibility, we ask guest contributors have some experience in restaurants, food, hospitality technology, or anything related to the industry. Inquiries from general freelancers will not be considered.