The Friendly Toast is a popular brunch restaurant with multiple locations in New England — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont — known for their breakfast plates and quirky decor. This review will be based on their Back Bay Boston location, situated a block away from the prominent John Hancock Tower (tallest building in New England).
The Friendly Toast (Back Bay)
Overall Rating: ★★★★ out of 5 stars
Address: 35 Stanhope St, Boston, MA 02116
Neighborhood: Back Bay
Perfect For: All-day breakfast with a fun retro atmosphere
Hours: Mon – Fri 8am – 3pm, Sat – Sun 8am – 5pm
Reservations: No, but a waitlist is available
Parking: Street, Garage
Links: Website, Menu
Cost: $25 per person (food only)
The Friendly Toast (Back Bay) is located on a quiet street across from the Frieda Garcia Park. Its entrance is through the double wooden doors to the right of its sign, not the see-through door below its sign.
The restaurant is quite busy on the weekends after 10 am, and does not accept reservations. However, you can check current wait times and join their waitlist using Yelp. Once you’ve joined the waitlist, Yelp provides a range of estimated seating times. The wait time is typically 1-2 hours during peak weekend hours. Upon arriving at the restaurant, check in with the staff and you will likely need to wait further until your table is ready. You might be able to be seated sooner if you’re OK with bar seating, which I found to be reasonably comfortable and well-spaced from neighboring guests.
The restaurant has a ground floor dining room with natural lighting as well as a basement dining room with a few tables and a bar. The interior surroundings are very colorful, quirky, and full of interesting signage.
I recommend checking out their online menu ahead of time, which has photos of each dish, instead of using the printed menu which does not include all photos. I ordered the “Appetize Me Captain” which contained a sampler platter of churro bites, breakfast egg rolls, and jumbo tots, as well as the “Doughnut Stop Believin” breakfast sandwich.
I thought that my server was very friendly and upbeat, and my order arrived in a reasonable amount of time.
The churro bites were my favorite part of the sampler platter — delicious crispy fried doughnut pieces tossed in cinnamon and sugar, then topped with a creamy cheesecake glaze and chocolate drizzle. They are served with a strawberry habanero jam, which I ended up using to dip the egg rolls in. The egg rolls themselves were OK; they were crispy but not particularly tasty or flavorful. The jumbo tots were fun to eat and had interesting flavors and textures: golden fried on the outside, cheddar stuffing on the inside, paired with a cheese sauce with caramelized onions, crumbled bacon, and scallions. And topped with a sriracha glaze.
The “Doughnut Stop Believin” dish sounded more delicious than it looked or tasted. It’s a breakfast sandwich on French toasted donuts, filled with sausage, cheddar cheese, scrambled eggs, and chipotle-maple sour cream, and topped with powdered sugar. On the side are home fries and strawberry habanero jam. This dish was OK, but not really my jam.
Overall, I thought that the food at The Friendly Toast was mostly good, service was great, and I like how it’s an all-day breakfast place. If I returned, I would be interested in trying out their Hash Quiche. However, given the lack of reservations and difficulty in planning ahead (the wait times for their online waitlist fluctuate throughout the day, which makes planning a visit more cumbersome than usual), I likely won’t return again.
