ABOUT US
Our Story
The Friendly Toast started in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1994 with a simple idea: make great food, make people feel welcome, and never take ourselves too seriously. More than 30 years later, our tables have gotten a little longer, but that idea hasn’t changed.
Today, The Friendly Toast brings bold, scratch-made breakfast, brunch, and lunch to communities across New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and Vermont. Our menu takes comfort you know and gives it a distinctly Toast twist through big flavors, unexpected combinations, generous portions, colorful cocktails, and plenty worth passing around the table.
The food is only part of our story. We believe restaurants are at their best when they give people a place to connect. A neighborhood gathering place. A first-date place. A post-game place. A catch-up-over coffee place. A Tuesday-for-no-particular-reason place. Any reason to connect is a reason to Toast.
What are you toasting to today?
A Better World Begins Around the Table
The Friendly Toast has always believed that being part of a neighborhood means contributing to it. As we've grown from our original Portsmouth restaurant into communities across New England, that commitment has grown with us. Through local partnerships, charitable giving, and community involvement, we use our restaurants and our reach to support organizations doing meaningful work in the places we call home. The Friendly Toast is proud to have given more than 550 thousand dollars back to our communities since 2014.
Culinary Commitment
At The Friendly Toast, our menu reflects our commitment to cooking with intention: using real ingredients, thoughtful sourcing, and time-honored techniques to create exceptional food, served with pride. Guided by purpose and grounded in craft, we strive to elevate every detail that reaches your table.
Our purpose extends beyond the plate. From our earliest days as an energetic neighborhood gathering place to the vibrant spaces we are today, we have always believed great food brings people together. Meals that linger. Conversations that stretch. Moments that turn everyday life into something worth toasting.
The Friendly Toast continues to honor our roots while reaching for what's next. One small step for flavor. One giant leap for bringing people together.
That commitment carries through to the partners we choose. We are proud to work with producers and artisans who share our dedication to quality, integrity, and flavor, including New School American Cheese for aged cheddar, cream, and butter made with real cheese and no processed ingredients; Rival Brothers Coffee; Ben's Sugar Shack; North Country Smokehouse; TCHO Cocoa; Natalie's Orchid Island Juices; Burlap & Barrel; and Mike's Hot Honey.
Who We Are
The Friendly Toast may have gotten bigger over the years, but we're still a family-owned New England business.
Eric Goodwin purchased The Friendly Toast in 2014, back when there were just two restaurants in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Cambridge, Massachusetts. A longtime restaurateur and entrepreneur, Eric saw something worth holding onto: a restaurant with personality, great food, and the kind of character you can't manufacture. Since then, he and the team have grown The Friendly Toast throughout New England while working hard to keep the things that made it special in the first place.
Today, Eric remains actively involved in The Friendly Toast alongside his son, Tyler Goodwin. For the Goodwins, owning The Friendly Toast has never been about making every restaurant look and feel exactly the same. It's about protecting what makes The Toast, The Toast: bold food, genuine hospitality, a little irreverence, and restaurants that feel like they belong to the communities around them.
And that's something worth toasting.
Our Team
Shawn Utke, CEO
Jamie Zeff, COO
Brandon Laverriere, CFO
Joshua Smith, VP, Culinary and Concept Innovation
Elisabeth Talbot, VP, Human Resources
Eric Tranfaglia, VP, Culinary Operations
Staci Pinard, VP, Operations Services
Madelyn Dignam, Director of Marketing
