Toast takes restaurant playbook to fuel and c-stores

Toast, a point of sale and management platform built for restaurants, is expanding into the gas station space. Toast Fuel is a new set of capabilities designed for fuel station operators and convenience stores. Store operators can now run fuel payments, both in-store and at the pump, alongside retail and food service on a single platform.

Built for unbranded, independent fuel and convenience stores, Toast Fuel is available now for U.S. operators through an integration with Allied Electronics' NeXGen Prime forecourt controller, with support for additional dispensers and payment capabilities by year end.

A potential bonanza

Convenience store operators account for an estimated 80 percent of fuel sales, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores. And many run their retail and fuel businesses on disconnected systems. Many also operate as quick service restaurants.

Toast, with its strong presence among restaurants, thinks it's got the chops to bring pump control onto the same cloud system already powering stores. That would pull together store, fuel, retail, payments, food service, marketing, inventory and team management systems onto a single platform, Toast explained in a press release.

"Food service and retail are blurring together, and the convenience store offers one of the clearest examples of this trend: the customer expects to buy gas a cup of coffee and groceries in a single stop" said Omri Traub, chief operating officer for retail at Toast. "Toast Fuel unifies that entire experience on a single platform. We're bringing the same innovation powering the country's best restaurants and retailers to c-store operators, giving them the modern tools they've long deserved so they can focus on delivering great customer experiences rather than managing their tech."

Support for fuel workflows

Toast Fuel gives cashiers a dedicated interface for managing fuel sales and pump activity. A real-time dashboard lets them monitor pumps, authorize fueling, stop a pump, and accept cash or card prepayments.

At the dispenser, Toast Fuel supports EMV-certified payments and fleet card acceptance, including distinct cash and credit prices at the pump. An offline mode keeps transactions moving at the pump and in-store if the internet connection drops.

Toast said it is partnering with OWL Services, which specializes in installing and servicing fuel dispensers, to handle onsite installation and logistics, while Toast's in-house onboarding and support teams guide operators through the software setup.

Tools for food programs

Operators can ring up fuel alongside in-store purchases, from coffee and grab-and-go items to made-to-order foods, all from a single screen, or from self-checkout kiosks for faster in-store transactions.

For sites running more robust food programs, Toast Fuel adds the same kitchen automation used at the roughly 180,000 restaurants running its software and systems, including kitchen display systems, digital menus, online ordering, delivery, drive-thru and handhelds.

AI-powered business insights

Toast IQ, the company's conversational AI assistant, draws on an operator's own data across fuel, retail and foodservice, with no separate reporting tools needed.

Operators can ask Toast IQ in plain language about their fuel and in-store margins down to the SKU or whether there is enough coffee and roller grill stock to get through a holiday weekend, from behind the counter or using mobile devices, Toast explained.

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