We are a high-volume sports bar with a full kitchen and bar, and many of our guests stay with us for 2 to 4 hours at a time. We recently implemented Order & Pay at the Table to increase sales and improve speed of service.
In the past week, I’ve spent over 10 hours onthe phone and chat trying to resolve two serious issues:
1. Pre-Authorization Amount
Currently, Toast defaults to a $0.01 pre-authorization hold.
There is no setting available to change this amount manually, and no way to contact the Order & Pay team through support.
As a result, when guests leave without closing their tab, we frequently encounter declined cards and have no way to recoup the sales.
Recommendation: Toast should make it standard, customizable, and user-controlled to increase pre-authorization amounts (just like bar tabs on traditional POS).
2. Walkouts / Unclosed Tabs
On busy weekends, we are seeing 10 to 20 guests walk out without closing their tabs.
The current programming for Order & Pay seems to be “just online ordering with a different label,” with no safety features built in for a dine-in bar environment.
Recommendation: Toast should allow an auto-close feature where tabs are closed after 30 minutes of inactivity with a preset tip amount applied. This would protect businesses from losses and align Order & Pay with real-world hospitality operations.
Open Question: Has anyone else experienced similar challenges? Have you found any workable solutions within Toast, or are you encountering the same limitations? I find Order and Pay to be a very valuable tool IF it is correctly engineered. Hoping that enough of us have the same thoughts so they will have to update the software.
Cheers,
Adam
