FohBoh, vertical social network dedicated exclusively to the restaurant industry, has now entered into an accelerated growth phase and will far exceed its initial goal of 10,000 members on its professional social-business network by the end of its first year.

FohBoh market timing has been ideal, with the right business model, the right management team using the right platform. “FohBoh is the exact type of focused social network that we sought to enable on Ning. Much more importantly, people want to connect with other people that share common interests and industries. FohBoh fills a desperate need in the market as demonstrated by their exponential viral growth,” said Gina Bianchini, CEO and Co-founder of Ning.com, the leading technology platform for social networking worldwide.

With a solid base of nearly 8,500 members from over 100 countries, FohBoh has enormous depth, reflected by its thousands of restaurants operated or owned by its current membership. “Ning has provided FohBoh with a great platform to validate our business model,” said Co-founder and CTO, Ted Cohn.

FohBoh.com (Front of the House, Back of the House) launched its ground breaking, first to market, professional social media site dedicated to the global restaurant industry January 1, 2008. While averaging more than 1,000 new members monthly, FohBoh plans to announce several new strategic business partnerships and alliances in the coming weeks that will serve to rapidly increase user adoption, membership, band awareness and revenue.

“We are closing key strategic partnerships more rapidly than we imagined — within weeks, not months. Our new partnerships will give us immediate access to millions of restaurant employees and mangers – just the kind of members FohBoh is looking to attract,” said Michael L. Atkinson, Co-founder and CEO.