What is the current website address and/or contact telephone number of
a restaurant reservations company called Perfect Host which was once
listed as being based in Fort Lee, New Jersey.  The company was
mentioned in an article entitled "Every Bite You Take, They'll Be
Watching You" by Amanda Hesser in the New York Times, March 1, 2000. 
New York restauranteurs like Steve Hanson (who owns Ruby Foo's and
Blue Water Grill) and Jean Georges Vongerichten (who owns Jean-Georges
and Vong) have used this system.

Hi Rudester,

I could not find anything on the Perfect Host restaurant software...I
wonder if Ms. Hesser is referring to ProHost? I searched in Google for
+restaurant +reservations +software (after no luck with "perfect host"
+ reservations) and found a press release at
(http://www.breakawaynet.com/news/opentable.htm) which indicated that
as of April 2 of this year, software company Breakaway International
had acquired two restaurant software suites -- RSViP (one mentioned in
the article) and ProHost. You can reach Breakaway at (800) 677-2986 or
(817) 788-8888. Breakaway also has a contact page at which you can
request more information about ProHost:
(http://www.breakawaynet.com/company/inforqst.htm.)

If you are sure this isn't what you're looking for, please reply to
me, and let me know anything else you can about this software
(espcially anywhere else you've seen it referred to.)

Libronaut

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Request for Answer Clarification by rudester-ga on 26 Jun 2002 12:07 PDT

Hi, Libronaut-ga!

It is possible that Perfect Host may have been bought out--however, at
the time of the article, by Amanda Hesser, Perfect Host was a company,
although I realize that there is something called ProHost available on
the market.  I believe ProHost is allied to RSVip.

---

Clarification of Answer by libronaut-ga on 26 Jun 2002 17:39 PDT

Hi Rudester,

By searching +"perfect host" +restaurant +software, I have confirmed
that Perfect Host was indeed a company.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2000/nf00330b.htm
This article was among those that referred to it. 

I then tried a different tack, searching "perfect host" "fort lee" and
found a website called hospitalityupgrade.com that gave me the
following contact information for Perfect Host:

Perfect Host LLC
2 Executive Drive
Fort Lee, NJ 07024
800.354.8630
201.944.8092

BUT (and it's a big but) I don't know how current this resource is.
Some pieces of it seemed to be quite recent, but this address had no
date attached. I tried a reverse phone number lookup (on the 201
number) but I haven't been able to find anything -- it tells me
there's no such number.

According to an article in Nation's Restaurant News (citation
follows), Stephen E. Meisels was the president and principal owner of
Perfect Host, LLC. He was also owner of Metrotouch, Inc. Metrotouch is
online at http://www.metrotouch.com, and I've written to the contact
person listed (not Mr. Meisels) to see if he or she knows anything
about Perfect Host. I will let you know as soon as this person writes
back!

The article can be read at
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m3190/21_33/54766435/print.jhtml
Nation's Restaurant News
May 24, 1999
Meisels' mission: Supero support for dining-room automation

Searching just "Steve E. Meisels" also brought me to Averoinc.com;
Avero seems to be another of his ventures. It's also hospitality
software.

I haven't been able to locate any press releases on Perfect Host --
that seems like a potentially excellent course of action, however.
Lexis Nexis and Dow Jones Interactive both provide access to press
releases, but they're licensed resources. I don't know where you're
located, but you might call your local library and see if there's a
way you can search press releases. Sometimes this is the best way of
locating information about a private company that seems to have
disappeared off the face of the earth (working reference at a business
school library, I can assure you it's not an uncommon problem.)

In summary, it looks like Perfect Host LLC was either subsumed into
MetroTouch, went out of business, or was bought by someone else. It
seems to have disappeared without a trace (unless you have any luck
with that address/phone). I recommend a press release search, and I
will post a comment when I hear back from the person at Metro Touch,
Inc.

I hope that helps! I will be in touch.

Libronaut

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Clarification of Answer by libronaut-ga on 29 Jun 2002 11:53 PDT

Hi Rudester,

I still haven't heard back from the fellow at Breakaway. Perhaps you'd
like to get in touch with him yourself? (Perhaps you already have...)

Libronaut

I do not believe Perfect Host is being offered anymore -- though I did
find a similar if not better product you may be interested in.  It
appears that Perfect Host MAY have been bought out, and merged with
this company.

http://www.breakawaynet.com/products/rsvip.htm

This is the product I found. 

The press release for the acquisitions, and I am assuming Perfect Host
may have gotten swallowed up too:

http://www.breakawaynet.com/news/opentable.htm