Celebrating the 2024 Toast Community Award Winners

 

The passionate people bringing hospitality to life

BOSTON, MA—Toast (NYSE: TOST), the all-in-one digital platform built for restaurants, recently held its 2024  Community Awards. The awards highlight passionate Toast customers and restaurant operators who go above and beyond to bring hospitality to life in their communities.

Toast received over 2,000 outstanding submissions in three categories: Hospitality, Impact, and Growth. We narrowed it down to nine finalists, and three winners were ultimately selected by the community via a public  vote. 

In addition to receiving a $10,000 award, winners recently joined Toast on an all-expenses trip to our Boston headquarters for Spark on Tour, where they received a physical award and an exclusive dinner with Toast leaders. We caught up with our Community Award winners to find out more about what the restaurant community means to them and how they’ll be using the award to benefit their business and their communities. 

Drumroll, please…

Hospitality: Chef’s Cafe, Sharonville, Ohio

Co-owners Paul and Laura MirandaLeft to right: CEO and Toast Co-founder Aman Narang, Chef's Cafe co-owners Paul and Laura Miranda, Co-Founder and Toast President Steve Fredette

Hospitality is key to keeping the 33-year-old Chef’s Cafe open, as many of its guests have been coming back for years for great food and service. 

“Hospitality is something very special,” Laura told Toast. “It really means to care for our guests. You know, caring about them and really treating the Chef's Cafe as their home away from home.”

From helping a customer remove ham from their navy bean soup every Tuesday to their loyal employee Ted, who’s 92 years old and has been with the cafe since the beginning, remembering longtime customers’ orders, hospitality means something different for everyone. The crew at Chef’s Cafe is always willing to help with whatever their guests need that day.

“What do you need? Are you having a bad day? Do you need a smile? Do you need a hug? Do you need a great sandwich? Do you need a chill place to be right now?” asked Paul. “And that's what we try to offer. It's like offering our home. Our home away from home for people, so that's what hospitality is for us.”

As new owners of what’s become an institution over the years, the Mirandas felt they needed to “prove” themselves to the guests who have been coming to the cafe for decades. That meant keeping some things the same while also trying to improve the operations. 

One of those improvements was modernizing their business from an old-school cash register to an all-in-one platform like Toast. 

“We have grandmothers that brought their daughters in. Now their daughters are bringing their kids in and eventually their kids will bring their kids in as long as we're still in business. What keeps us going every day is our guests,” said Paul.

When Toast asked what the couple plans to do with their prize money, they said they want to continue to make improvements to their operations. 

“We're going to make our little hole in the wall, not so much of a hole in the wall anymore. Maybe do some little patchwork and new equipment and modernize a little bit,” Laura told Toast. “This is huge for a small business like us. It's really nice to be a guest and be on the other end of hospitality for once.” 

Impact: Goldie’s Bagels, Columbia, Missouri

Owner Amanda Rainey and manager Struby Struble

Left to right: Goldie's Bagels Owner Amanda Rainey and Manager Struby Struble

"Whoever needs, come and eat," reads a sign inside Goldie’s Bagels. And they mean it. Via their neighbor fund, guests in need can get a bagel and schmear with a coffee regardless of their ability to pay.

“Winning the Toast Impact Award allows us to continue our neighbor fund… which really follows a rich history in our town of supporting one another through restaurants and our own beliefs about how to be a restaurant and be a part of our community,” Struble said.

Originally, the team was handing out free food without tracking expenses, but when the community saw this and asked to donate their own funds, Rainey decided to create an official program. 

“[We] decided that it would be a good idea to make the program official. And so in doing that, we discovered that Toast had the house account and that we could use that for this program,” said Rainey.

“I think hospitality means building that community space where people feel welcome and joyous and we're all a part of this and in it together,” said Struble. 

Goldie’s plans to use the Impact Award prize money to fund its neighbor program through the end of the year. The program currently serves 50 people per week.  

“There's a lot of systemic issues in poverty that we are not quite capable of taking on as a bagel shop,” said Struble. “But the part we feel we can take on is treating everyone with kindness and respect, and dignity. Providing a bagel schmear and coffee is a pretty easy way for us to contribute that we also enjoy and love and take pride in doing.” 

Growth: Oscar’s Authentic Mexican Grill, Olathe, Kansas

Co-owner Delfino Vasquez

Left to right: CEO and Toast Co-founder Aman Narang, Oscar's Authentic Mexican Grill Delfino Vasquez, Co-Founder and Toast President Steve Fredette

Innovation is top of mind for Delfino Vasquez when he thinks about how to make his restaurant more successful. The fast-casual Mexican restaurant is known for its classic dishes and catering business, as well as its constant improvements—from food to technology.

 “I worked on the system for six, seven years — every day trying to find something new, something to make it better and to give our customers the best experience possible. And to finally get that recognized was an amazing feeling,” Vasquez said when describing how it felt to win the Community Award for growth.

From QR codes and online ordering to robot food runners* that bring out food to guests, Vasquez is not afraid to try something new at the restaurant to improve operations for both his staff and his guests. 

“We brought in the robots because we saw it as an opportunity to include more technology into the business and make it a more efficient system,” said Vasquez.  “Our front of the house staff loves the robots. A lot of people always comment ‘Oh, they're going to take our jobs,’ things like that. Honestly now, if I take it away from our staff, I think they would kind of be like, ‘OK, we need the robot’ because it's not taking their job. It's actually helping them…. so, bringing in the robots has been a huge help and it's been working really great. We love the robot.”

Vasquez’s desire to innovate is one of the reasons he says he partnered with Toast.

“I think it's important to have a technology partner because innovation is just something that is gonna keep moving. And as a restaurant owner, we are focused on the food, we're focused on the customers. We're also focused on making sure like our food cost is low. We're focused on a lot of things. So having Toast also focus on their technology — it's amazing.

Oscar’s Mexican Grill has a tech stack to help control the restaurant's flow and keep guests happy. In addition to robots, they implement kiosks and mobile ordering so that larger parties can order from their table.

“That allows the lines to get shorter. It helps the people that are in a hurry to get out of the restaurant faster and back to the office, said  Vasquez. “And it helps us to control our food costs. Using technology has really helped us out to keep more control over the things like food and all of our staff and labor.”

What plans do they have for the prize money? Of course, it’s going to be used for growth and marketing.

“The plans for the $10,000 will be to boost our marketing — focus on how we can make it a better experience for the customers, Vasquez told Toast. “We're working on putting logos on our cups to encourage people to order online through QR codes or online… the way we see the cups is like a walking billboard… I think winning the award is going to bring new customers as it is already.”