Wiring a Toast Guest-Facing Display for Drive-Thru (HDBaseT)
In drive-thru setups, customers often want one of the screens to double as a customer-facing order confirmation display — showing the guest their itemized order and running total as it's rung in. That's a separate, POS-driven feed from the Menuboard Manager CMS content:
The order confirmation feed comes from Toast's Guest-Facing Display (GFD), driven off the terminal itself rather than from Menuboard Manager. Toast Support can confirm whether GFD is enabled on your account and which of their guest-display options fits your terminal.
Menuboard Manager drives the menu/promo content on the other screens.
We're a Toast Development partner. Menuboard Manager has integrated directly with Toast for years, so the CMS content and the POS-driven order confirmation feed are designed to live side by side in the same install.
Dual-Purposing the Order Confirmation Screen
The screen used for order confirmation can also have Menuboard Manager installed on it, so the customer can show CMS content on it instead of order confirmation whenever they want. In that arrangement:
The display normally sits on its HDMI input, receiving the order confirmation video from the Toast terminal via an HDBaseT extender (sender → Cat6 → receiver → HDMI into the display).
If the Android display offers "Auto Source Switching," set it to ON, and set "Primary Input" to HDMI. That way it defaults to the order confirmation video, but you can switch to the built-in Menuboard Manager app when needed.
⚠️ WARNING: NEVER connect HDBaseT devices to a network switch. The Cat6 run between the HDBaseT sender and receiver is point-to-point only — it carries HDMI-over-Cat6, not Ethernet. Plugging either end into a network switch can damage the equipment and will not work.
Plan which physical screen carries which feed before final install, especially outdoors where sunlight readability and weatherproofing matter.
Related Articles
Installing Menuboard Manager on a Locked-Down Android Signage Player (No Google Play) — Full install guide for the drive-thru signage player alongside a Toast GFD screen.
Real-Time Order Confirmation — Menuboard Manager's own software-driven order confirmation board (Northstar/Toast), a different feature from Toast's GFD.
Toast POS Integration Guide — Full guide to connecting and configuring Toast POS in Menuboard Manager.