TOASTERiA CAFE

Create a learning organization with all employees

2022 Top 100 MVP Managers Award Ceremony

TOASTERiA CAFE is the first restaurant in Taiwan to specialize in creative panini, founded by Tomer Feldman, who was born in Israel.

Since opening in 2008, it has transformed from a small five-ping store in Taipei's East District with just five partners into a two-story Mediterranean restaurant. In 2017, it opened its second branch on Yongkang Street in Taipei, which is a four-story standalone flagship store. In 2021, it weathered the severe pandemic and ventured out of northern Taiwan to open its third branch in Taichung's Calligraphy Greenway shopping district, not only exceeding 100 partners but also achieving an annual revenue of over 100 million yuan.

The plan moving forward is to open one directly operated store each year, allowing the Mediterranean lifestyle to take root in various corners of cities in Taiwan.

TOASTERiA has rapidly grown during the pandemic, largely due to the efforts of CEO Zhang Xiuru.

Zhang Xiuru, originally a dancer and unfamiliar with corporate management, has been able to lead TOASTERiA through challenges with continuous learning and an indomitable spirit.

Between Dance and Dining: The Crossroads of Zhang Xiuru

Zhang Xiuru, a graduate of the Dance Department at National Taipei University of Arts, originally aspired to become a dancer. However, from working as a store manager at TOASTERiA, she eventually rose to become its CEO.

Reflecting on that journey, she admits the decision wasn’t easy.

Having joined a dance class since third grade, she was fully committed to the path of dance education. At 17, she set her heart on becoming a professional dancer. Right after high school, she took her translator device and flew to New York, and later returned to study at TNUA.

While in university, she worked part-time at TOASTERiA. By chance, she took on the role of store manager at the Shida branch. At the time, the founder told her:
"No matter what happens with your career overseas, TOASTERiA will always be your home. Whenever you want to come back, we’ll be here."

After graduation, she went to Europe to audition for dance companies. Most of the time, she was alone, and the journey was tough.

Xiuru is the type of person who thrives on working toward goals together—to strive, enjoy, and grow as a team. But in the world of professional dance, unless it’s a special performance, it’s difficult to shine alone. The process is competitive, intense, and often isolating.

Eventually, she realized:
“Maybe the stage wasn’t truly where I belonged.”
So she decided to keep dance as a passion—not a profession.

Even then, she wasn’t certain about a future in the food & beverage industry.
But as she gained more fulfillment and joy working in TOASTERiA, and as the company began expanding, she chose to seize the opportunity and grow with the brand.

Speaking of each new challenge, Zhang Xiuru says:
“Maybe I’m just the type who doesn’t take failure as a sign of being unfit, but rather a sign that I’m not good enough yet. So I keep reflecting, learning, and improving—seeking help from mentors and peers. As I moved into higher management roles, I also focused on learning how to lead a team and help us grow stronger together.”

Building corporate cohesion – encouraging teams to work hard together

TOASTERiA has gone through 15 years since its establishment, during which many partners have joined and left, and many partners are about to reach their 10th year, while many others have been with us for over 10 years.

These partners have a strong sense of cohesion towards TOASTERiA, mainly because we not only encourage continuous learning together but also promote internal entrepreneurship, allowing partners to become partners and shareholders together.

These two aspects set us apart from other segments of the food & beverage industry (whether independent stores or chains) and are great benefits provided by TOASTERiA.

Currently, the turnover rate in the food and beverage industry reaches as high as 20% to 30%, but TOASTERiA maintained a turnover rate of only 7% during the most severe period of the pandemic from May 2021 to May 2022, meaning only one partner with over a year of service left,

with staff turnover rates far below peers. The key is that Toastily operates on a single shift system.

Implementing a single shift in the food service industry is not easy, because the busiest times are during lunch and dinner, but Toastily operates earlier, from 9 AM to midnight, thus creating two shifts, with overlapping staff hours during the busiest times to facilitate mutual assistance.

In addition to the single shift, for newcomers in the food and beverage industry, the starting salary at TOASTERiA is 34,000 NTD, as it requires professional skills and involves physical labor. Zhang Xiuru started as a frontline service staff member, and thus she hopes to cultivate frontline partners to become talents in the food and beverage industry.

Furthermore, there has always been a labor shortage in the food and service sector. Zhang Xiuru observes that many peers are just as serious about changing the ecosystem of the food and beverage industry.

TOASTERiA will also continue to provide partners with educational training resources, properly cultivate talents in the food and beverage industry, and optimize the team to uplift the food and beverage industry in Taiwan.

Choosing Lian Sheng as a platform for learning and nurturing talent

Toasteria provides its partners with educational training resources, offering over 600 courses each year in 2021 and 2022 alone. In addition to professional training, there is also training in management. Zhang Xiuru's first encounter with Lian Sheng's management training came from CEO Shen Shaolan's recommendation on Facebook regarding the Lian Sheng CEO class. Zhang Xiuru responded, "The CEO class is a full-day course, gathering hundreds of business leaders. Professor Chen Zong Xian shares about international situation changes and industry chain transformations, as well as corporate response strategies in the first half of the course. Thus, I not only grasp the development trends of the restaurant industry, but I can also learn about the development trends of different industries and whether they might impact my industry. The second half then shares management know-how based on themes planned each month." Among them, the most significant for Zhang Xiuru was Professor Chen's advocacy of agile management. In other words, the headquarters team, which needs to lead five stores and outlets, requires high efficiency. Therefore, after learning agile management in the CEO class, Zhang Xiuru implemented it with her headquarters team the very next day. The headquarters team consists of eight partners, each required to use one minute to outline their work for the day, leaving five minutes for Q&A. As a result, even though everyone works in different places, agile management allows everyone to quickly know what they need to do each day. After achieving good learning outcomes from the CEO class, Zhang Xiuru also had mid-level and senior managers attend Lian Sheng's management training certification, strategy map implementation, and annual planning courses, which are essential for management professionals. Previously, it was mostly Zhang Xiuru who completed the courses first before allowing the partners to attend. However, throughout the past year, Zhang Xiuru directly allowed the team to attend classes, enabling Lian Sheng to help the headquarters team and senior managers of Toasteria quickly become what they wanted to be within a year, growing alongside the company. From staff to store managers to CEOs, different positions require different skills. Zhang Xiuru cultivates her partners to possess the necessary competencies by first discussing their dreams and goals with them. Once the goals are defined, they evaluate how far they are from the goals and consider what else can be done in the process of achieving those goals. Typically, Zhang Xiuru plans with her partners for 3-5 year goals, conducting interviews and focus meetings every six months to check whether partners are moving in the right direction. She believes that regardless of salary, title, or position, or shifting into different fields, the primary task is to clarify goals, make them specific and data-driven, and thus achieve them sequentially to ultimately reach the goals.

Everyone is a slash

TOASTERiA supports the team to do what they want to do. Because the founder of TOASTERiA, Tang Feiming, was previously an executive chef, and his hobby after work was to play guitar in a pub. Meanwhile, the CEO, Zhang Xiuru, initially joined TOASTERiA to save money to realize her dream of becoming a dancer. Therefore, from the founder to the CEO, TOASTERiA is a company that embodies the concept of being a slash. Zhang Xiuru shared that Taiwan's current labor laws and the Ministry of Labor are fighting for many benefits for workers. Additionally, TOASTERiA implements a one-shift system, with an 8-hour workday and 2 days off a week, resulting in each person having about 1/3 to 1/4 of their time spent working. As such, she strongly encourages partners to use the other 2/3 of their time to pursue what they want to do, even to develop different skills to become more versatile (Cross over). The previous generation specialized in one area, but the current generation may not. She believes that when a person has more interdisciplinary thinking and possesses more diverse work experiences, they will discover many different connections. Thus, she not only encourages all partners to be slashers but also thinks it is fine to transition to the same industry. After all, in the catering industry, everyone is fighting for the country. Everyone hopes to improve Taiwan's catering industry. Therefore, she does not see it as 'we are peers, we are competitors,' but rather tells her partners, 'We are peers, we need to make the catering industry better, so everyone knows what they can learn in the catering industry.' She hopes that in 12 years, when her child is 18 years old, his classmates and their parents will view entering the catering or service industry as a necessary part-time job process. Because here, one can not only learn professional skills in the kitchen, front of house, and barista, but also learn how to collaborate with the team.

Balancing Work and Family for Professional Women

As a working mother, Zhang Xiuru believes that regardless of whether one is male or female, and regardless of the industry, everyone encounters different challenges at work every day.

According to her observations, working mothers often face particular challenges, mainly needing to carve out time to accompany their children, handle household chores, or communicate with their husbands.

In the case of Toasteria, women make up 76% of the management team, and Zhang Xiuru frequently discusses with partners who have families and children how to balance work and family responsibilities.

Of course, in such discussions and communications, the most important thing is to provide space and consider these working mothers more, not to easily give up on the possibilities for women in the workplace.

Because Zhang Xiuru is also a working woman, she is able to empathize more with her partners who are also professional women, thus offering greater understanding and flexibility.

The key to TOASTERiA's success as it enters its 15th anniversary

The success of TOASTERiA today is largely attributed to having a wonderful group of partners and an excellent team.

Zhang Xiuru admitted that although it is still too early to declare success, it is certain that they are making progress step by step towards their strategic planning and direction.

Zhang Xiuru also hopes to provide better lives for their partners, foster mutual prosperity with shareholders and the upstream and downstream industry chain, and most importantly, continuously cultivate sustainable talent in the catering industry.