What do we think about this Toast 'short film'?
The three-minute commercial featuring a famous face wants to make the industry laugh.
My thoughts and my heart are with my friends and readers and industry folks in Los Angeles today. I’m so sorry to see what’s happening. Please stay safe.
This week, Toast debuted its first in a series of videos tied to a new marketing campaign. The video, filmed at Marea restaurant in Manhattan, features a dining room full of guests — including Matty Matheson, chef and actor in the breakout industry-focused series The Bear — asking for borderline ridiculous accommodations and menu modifications. The video’s message? Toast’s software can handle the complicated stuff.
The slick “short film,” as it was described to me by a Toast rep, is essentially a three-minute commercial for the point of sale and payments service — but it is funny. It’s full of the same insider-y, IYKYK jokes that go viral in restaurant-centric social media circles. Toast, a publicly traded company worth $21 billion, clearly wants in on some of that action.
What do you think? Will leveling with restaurant staff help boost Toast’s bottom line?
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What else?
Kindly stop firing restaurant critics and other journalists. Yes. hard agree. — The LO Times
Social media restaurant hype is so influential that Grub Street runs a whole column about it now. (To be clear, I think this is a great idea.) — Grub Street
What’s really happening at Oakland, CA’s restaurants? The San Francisco Chronicle’s Elena Kadvany reports on the reality gap between national coverage and what’s happening on the ground as closures mount. “You have these amazing restaurants that are closing. It’s not that they’re not good. It’s that there’s a systemic issue that needs to be looked at,” said one local operator. — SF Chronicle (unlocked)
DoorDash’s Super Bowl commercial this year will focus on DashPass, the company’s subscription offering, per a spokesperson. The company has long promoted the offering which provides valuable recurring revenue and is associated with brand loyalty; most recently in a high-profile partnership with ride-hail service Lyft.
Wonder completes its Grubhub acquisition. That was fast! — Restaurant Business
Nothing, even a revamp of a once-beloved coffee chain under a star CEO, is fast enough for analysts. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol was quickly clear on his plan to turn his company’s business around, but… yeah. Sometimes these things take a while? — Restaurant Dive
What happens when a Cornell Hotel School grad joins an airline? My pal Brian Sumers at
explains how f&b programming at 30,000 feet is different from other parts of the airline business. (As I like to say: restaurants, or in this case food service, are always the exception!) — The Airline ObserverOkay who wrote this? (I have a guess.) In a recent, predictions-focused edition of the Feed Me newsletter, one restaurant industry insider “predicted” that, this year, “Check-in / check-out / basic guest communication processes will be completely digitized and automated, and staff will instead be used for surprise and delight and highly personable and personalized moments in the guest journey.” — Feed Me
Not nearly as good as the original, #GTFOH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMZkukOB8Ig
The film? Unbearable - maybe it shows how clever Toast is, but repeating all those cliches is just aggravating, and for a non-American arouses emotions already stretched by current events. They think this is funny?