New "Built For Busy" campaign spotlights successful customers—and gives back to them with unique-out-of-home activation

For over a decade, Toast (NYSE:TOST) has proven its ability to perform in the fast-paced, high-pressure world of restaurants, while serving as a trusted partner to those running complex and challenging businesses. Today, drawing on those years of experience, Toast proudly announces its next chapter with its evolving brand, Built For Busy.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260416902872/en/

Launching with an omnichannel brand campaign including live out-of-home activations, Built For Busy is a new positioning rooted in the hard work, dedication, and pride at the heart of business ownership, and an expression of Toast's commitment to helping each of its customers grow and thrive.

"For business owners, being busy is the point—it's the proof of progress. This dedication to building products designed to help our customers succeed in a rapidly-changing world is at the heart of Built For Busy, and shapes the way Toast builds technology," said Kelly Esten, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Enterprise at Toast. "As we continue to unlock new innovation and the potential of AI, we're doing it with 'busy' in mind. Every innovation seeks to make a Friday night rush more manageable or help an owner fill an empty sales floor with new faces—and we're going to keep building as the industry and its challenges continue to evolve."

From iconic fine-dining concepts to high-traffic enterprise brands and the most popular local bakeries and shops, running a business today means managing more complexity than ever before. Toast's platform is purpose-built for that challenge. Working with 164,000+ businesses and powering millions of daily transactions, Toast has developed an understanding of what it takes to run busy, successful businesses. Every product is built from that knowledge, including Toast IQ—Toast's AI assistant, which supported Toast's recent recognition by Fast Company as one of the most innovative restaurant tech companies of 2025, for its AI-powered, personalized insights designed to serve as an operator's "right hand."

Windows to Success: Spotlighting the Art of Busy

Today, Toast will also launch Windows to Success, a unique out-of-home activation that puts the people and products behind great hospitality front and center, and puts Toast's marketing budget right back in the pockets of those who matter most—Toast customers operating some of the busiest businesses in NYC.

Toast partnered with high-traffic restaurants and retailers across the city, turning their windows into "living billboards" to spotlight the people who drive their success. Developed in partnership with creative agency partner, Arnold, the campaign will frame each businesses' front windows with custom graphics that turn their storefronts into stages, showcasing the behind-the-scenes bustle that goes into creating iconic hospitality experiences while highlighting the incredible scale they serve—from thousands of daily covers to daily sold-out croissants. Rather than investing in traditional media for this campaign, Toast is putting that budget where it matters most: back into each of the NYC businesses on display.

Participating businesses* include:

Carmine's: One of the busiest independent restaurants in the country, serving Times Square for over 34 years, with over 3,000 covers daily during the holiday season.
Gertie: A beloved Brooklyn bagel counter, serving their community with 1,000 bagels on busy weekends.
H&H Bagels: A New York staple since 1972, H&H slings over 2,000 egg sandwiches a day across all locations.
Marea: Iconic, award-winning restaurant fielding 1,200 reservations inquiries a day and serving the lucky guests who can land one with 250 pounds of pasta daily.
Poppy's: A cozy local all-day cafe and shop providing coffee, sandwiches, and pantry staples amounting to 1,000 eggs per week.
Radio Bakery: A New York City bakery serving over 800 of their sweet and savory croissants along with sourdough bread, and sandwiches every single day.
Two Hands: An Australian-style cafe known for feel-good meals & vibrant drinks from breakfast to dinner—more often than not topped with a healthy serving of avocado—their staff goes through 600 avos/week.
Win Son: A highly-acclaimed Taiwanese-American restaurant known for hard-to-get reservations and serving an insane number of their favorite Big Chicken Buns each week.

"Toast has been a game-changer for my business, and this opportunity to showcase Carmine's and reward the team makes me even more proud to partner with them," said Jeffrey Bank, CEO of Alicart Restaurant Group, which owns Carmine's. "Tools like Toast IQ have proven invaluable for providing quick insights into performance so we can keep up with the demand our busy locations require and focus on the hospitality that makes me love what I do for a living."

Toast's Windows to Success activation will live across New York City locations beginning April 16, 2026 — but the stories won't stop there. Toast is partnering with leading NYC content creators including Will Damron (@tastebywill) and Justin Wu (@hungryartistny), along with restaurant business influencers like Shawn Walchef of Cali BBQ to capture unique, behind-the-scenes content with each restaurant and their teams, rolling it out across digital channels throughout the year.

To learn more about Toast and the "Built For Busy" brand and campaign, visit www.toasttab.com.

*Ingredient and menu item metrics self-reported by each customer.

About Toast

Toast (NYSE:TOST) is a cloud-based, all-in-one digital technology platform purpose-built for the entire restaurant community. Toast provides a single platform of software as a service (SaaS) products and financial technology solutions that give restaurants everything they need to run their business across point of sale, operations, digital ordering and delivery, marketing and loyalty, and team management. By serving as the restaurant operating system across dine-in, takeout, and delivery channels, Toast helps restaurants streamline operations, increase revenue, and deliver amazing guest experiences. For more information, visit www.toasttab.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260416902872/en/

Media: media@toasttab.com

Investors: IR@toasttab.com

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