Monday, November 22, 1999

A time for thanks


Pick a restaurant. Any restaurant. Most likely you'll have chosen one that is part of Foodline.com's register of dining establishments that accept reservations online and offer all sorts of other services. Paul and Deborah Lightfoot, the dynamic brother-sister duo has an aggressive line up and goal of at least 600 restaurants to be in its database. They're also expanding the cities they're collaborating with too, starting from Boston and with a strategic alliance with Ticketmaster Online--Citysearch, they'll soon be in many cites.

Their party on Monday, November 22nd drew a fun-loving crowd of foodies and techies. Seth Price, the consultant extraordinaire was chatting it up with Nicole Berlyn of SixDegrees.com. SixDegrees president & CEO Andrew Weinreich was also rubbing shoulders with the swingy group including Sean Jacobsohn and David Kanbar and Susan Levovsky who will be launching a competing site in one month. "Right now we're collaborative, not combative," said Susan. Freelance writer Susan Redstone (who was pitching the story to the London Times) was there with Mary McEvoy of TalkCity, who spoke with me for a bit about the celebrity chats they conduct. Gordon Adams, manager of O'Nieal's was one of the first restaurants online with Foodline, and spoke of the ease of Foodline as a great feature. Her first day on the job, Stephanie Margiotta introduced me to some folks from her last job--David La Placa and Michael Clafine at Warburg Dillon Read, one of the early investors in Foodline. Eric Moscow of Cybear was there with them and I also met another early investor, Jonathan Yormak.

The hors d'oeuvres were getting gobbled as they came piping hot from the kitchen, cosmopolitans were overflowing and the large Foodline sign in the back of the restaurant kept all the guests brimming with happiness. They should be, Foodline's gonna make our busy lives easier. And the Foodline people should be brimming with happiness. They're beating competitors to the money, the alliances and to the restaurants. Eat up, dinner is served!