Pandemic Darlings The pandemic economy, in original documents
Home Profiles Toast

Profiles · Companies and entities

ProfileCompany or group

Toast

Other company

Other programs
Type
Company or group
Role
Other company
Programs
Other programs
Updated

The profile

Toast, the Boston restaurant point-of-sale and payments company, sells to an industry whose weekly same-store sales nationwide fell nearly 75 percent in March 2020, its registration statement says. It cut half its staff in April. It took no PPP loan. It lobbied Congress for restaurant relief, and in April 2021 it announced a partnership with the SBA to help its customers apply to the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund; its registration statement says Toast's "sustained actions throughout 2020 played a role" in creating that fund. Its payment volume still grew 17 percent in 2020, and it went public in September 2021.

  • Category: restaurants, food, and local commerce
  • Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
  • Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Founders, executives and investors

Chris Comparato was chief executive in 2020. Aman Narang was chief executive by February 2024 and signed the company's annual report for 2024. Before the pandemic Toast was last valued at $5 billion and had raised more than $900 million in venture capital, TechCrunch reported, citing Crunchbase. It filed to go public on August 27, 2021, and its Class A shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Business before the pandemic

Toast sells restaurants the hardware and software to take orders and payments: handheld ordering pads, self-service kiosks and kitchen display screens, tied to its payment processing. It also lends to restaurants through Toast Capital. It sold mainly to independent restaurants. TechCrunch reported that Comparato cited 109 percent revenue growth in 2019.

What the pandemic did to the business

Most of Toast's 2020 revenue, $644.4 million of $823.1 million, came from financial technology solutions, which include payment processing. Its processing fee is generally a percentage of each transaction plus a fixed per-transaction fee, and the registration statement ties that revenue's growth to payment volume. On March 18, 2020 Toast's Rally for Restaurants site reported, from Toast platform data, that "restaurant sales have now declined by 68% nationwide." The registration statement later said weekly same-store restaurant sales nationwide "plummeted nearly 75% virtually overnight" once states shut dining rooms in March 2020. Toast's gross payment volume fell 24 percent in the second quarter of 2020 from a year earlier.

For the full year, payment volume still rose 17 percent, from $21.8 billion to $25.4 billion, and annualized recurring run-rate rose from $184 million to $326 million. Takeout shifted the mix toward card-not-present payments, which the registration statement says typically earn Toast more than card-present ones. The net loss widened to $248.2 million from $209.4 million.

Relief: no PPP loan, a lobbying campaign and the restaurant fund

In April 2020 the Rally site's CARES Act guide said "Toast is not affiliated with the United States Small Business Administration" and that it did not act as a lender or referral agent for SBA lenders. SBA's public PPP loan data list no loan to a Toast-named borrower in Massachusetts. The CARES Act's five-year loss carryback did not help Toast either: the registration statement says the changes did not affect its balance sheet at the end of 2020, because it kept a full valuation allowance against its U.S. operating losses.

By May the Rally site carried a letter to the four congressional leaders, signed by Comparato and 22 others, including the chief executives of Nextdoor, OpenTable and Tripadvisor. It said "a bipartisan follow-up to the CARES Act will be critical" and asked for a choice of PPP forgiveness window, changes to the permitted uses of PPP money and to forgiveness rules, and a mandate that business-interruption insurance cover COVID-19 losses, with the government reinsuring insurers under a "PRIA (Pandemic Risk Insurance Act)." In December Comparato said "Toast remains hopeful that our lobbying efforts to pass the RESTAURANTS Act will result in a positive outcome for the industry."

The American Rescue Plan Act established the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Toast's April 22, 2021 release announced an SBA partnership for the $28.6 billion fund, promising Toast customers "a simplified application process for RRF grant applications by May 2021." It quoted Nick DeLeonardis, a Toast senior vice president: the company had "written letters to Congress, actively lobbied to help secure this funding for the restaurant industry." SBA's program page listed Toast among its point-of-sale channels: "If you are working with Square or Toast, you do not need to register beforehand on the application portal." The registration statement went further: "We believe our sustained actions throughout 2020 played a role in the eventual development and passing of the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund."

What Toast gave its customers

Customers got software credits. Toast "waived subscription fees of over $20 million for our entire customer base," the registration statement says, and COVID-related credits and refunded fees partly offset the growth in 2020 subscription revenue, which still rose 62 percent to $101.4 million. Toast also launched Toast Delivery Services, the digital-only Toast Now platform and contactless Order & Pay. Its Rally for Restaurants campaign asked diners to order takeout and buy gift cards, and Toast.org pledged $1 per eligible social media post, up to $250,000, split evenly between the Restaurant Workers' Community Foundation and World Central Kitchen.

Toast Capital services working-capital loans that a partner bank makes to Toast customers. Toast must buy back loans from a given quarter that are charged off or non-performing, up to 15 percent of that quarter's original principal; for a limited winter 2020–21 program tied to the pandemic, the cap was 30 percent. In December 2020 Toast announced a "Toast Restaurant Recovery Fund" of one-month software credits for current customers, limited-time free access to its online ordering, payroll and marketing products, and access to Toast Capital funding. Toast put the package at $35 million.

Raising its own money

Toast raised $402.4 million, net of issuance costs, from Series F preferred stock in the first half of 2020, and $200 million of 8.5 percent convertible notes issued on June 19, 2020. It prepaid the notes on June 21, 2021 for $248.7 million in cash and issued warrants for 1,622,717 Class B shares in connection with the prepayment. Toast's IPO prospectus, dated September 21, 2021, offered 21,739,131 new Class A shares at $40.00 each, $869,565,240 before underwriting discounts. At the end of 2021 Toast had 3,172 employees.

Layoffs

In April 2020 Toast "terminated approximately 48% of our employees in connection with a reduction in force" and furloughed about 12 percent, its registration statement says; Massachusetts's WARN report lists 736 people affected in Boston. Toast booked $10.1 million of 2020 costs, including severance, to the workforce reduction and $2.8 million to ending leases early, and added both back when it calculated adjusted EBITDA. How Toast handled layoffs →

After the first shock

In February 2024 Toast laid off about 550 employees, roughly 10 percent of its staff, in a restructuring to lower operating costs. "Toast grew rapidly over the past few years to support our growing customer community," Narang said.

Since 2025

Toast's annual report for 2024, filed on February 26, 2025, showed net income of $19 million, against a net loss of $246 million in 2023. Annualized recurring run-rate was $1,626 million at the end of 2024, up 34 percent, and the company had about 5,700 employees. Its annual report for 2025, filed February 18, 2026, shows revenue of $6.15 billion and net income of $342 million, against revenue of $823 million and a net loss of $248 million in 2020. About 164,000 restaurant locations used Toast at the end of 2025, and they processed $195.1 billion of gross payment volume during the year. Annualized recurring run-rate reached $2,047 million, and Toast had about 6,500 employees.

Sources

Back to top