Online ordering platform Toast announced today that they will reverse its decision to add a 99-cent fee to all orders of more than $10, following a barrage of complaints from restaurant operators, who say they were forced to pass the cost on to customers.
“After extensive discussions with many of you, we have made the decision to remove the $0.99 order processing fee from the new version of our digital ordering suite by the end of this week,” Toast CEO Chris Comparato said in a message posted on the company’s website.
“While we had the best of intentions — to keep costs low for our customers — that is not how the change was perceived by some of you. We made the wrong decision and following a careful review, including the additional feedback we received, the fee will be removed from our Toast digital ordering channels.
“Each and every day at Toast we wake up focused on a single mission — to empower the restaurant community to delight your guests, do what you love, and thrive. Similar to how you run your restaurant, sometimes this involves making difficult decisions on whether to pass rising costs onto our community,” the company added.
The additional fee caused an added expense to many local food establishments, many of whom are already grappling with higher prices across the board, with several local owners telling TLS they have been going back and forth with the company since the new fees were announced.
The Toast CEO later told reporters: “Truth be told, we removed the 99-cent fee because we realized that, if we did not remove the fee, we would be toast. And, it goes without saying, that no successful company out there wants to be toast, except, perhaps, the Melba Toast company.”
However, the Melba Toast company later issued a statement responding to the Toast CEO saying: “Unlike the hypocritical Toast company, we at Melba Toast are proud to be toast. In fact, toast is the very essence of who, and what we are – it’s in our DNA!”
The Melba Toast spokesman added: “So don’t be fooled by these phony, con-artist businesses that call themselves toast, and pretend to be toast, when in fact they abhor toast, and even admit
– when they’re under intense heat and presure -that they have no desire whatsoever to be toast.”
🙂