Valet Parking: A ‘Status Thing’ Turns Into a Service

Every day, the owners of some of the county’s more upscale wheel estate nonchalantly hand over the keys to their treasures to people they have never met in exchange for little pieces of paper with numbers on them.

The guy who won’t let his own 19-year-old take that new Mercedes around the block doesn’t think twice about paying some kid the same age to get behind the wheel--he might even slip him anywhere from a fiver to a double sawbuck in hopes that his car will get to wait Up Front in the prestige spot while its owner dines, shops or socializes inside.

This curious custom is called valet parking, and in Orange County it happens just about everywhere: hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, country clubs, hospitals--that’s right, hospitals--and a growing number of parties at private homes.

The frustrations of driving may be inescapable in Orange County, but the tedium of parking, at least, can be avoided for only a couple of bucks. What was once a rather exclusive privilege has become commonplace.

“In the past, it was a status thing,” says Jeff Carter, general manager of Angel’s Elite, one of the county’s largest valet services, which handles parking at South Coast Plaza, the Anaheim Marriott and other locations, as well as at private parties. “Now I think it’s just something that people appreciate as a service.”

Valet parking in Orange County costs anywhere from nothing to about $6, Carter says. The average tip is about a dollar, although some customers, whether naive or just plain stingy, don’t bother to tip.

Most valets are young; the average age at Angel’s Elite is about 21, Carter says. Although there are career valets in Las Vegas and other resorts, here the typical valet is more likely a college student working to pay the bills. They start at minimum wage, $3.35 an hour, plus tips.

“We look for more than just someone to fill a spot,” Carter says. “We need someone who’s fairly responsible, whose driving record is clean, who fits the Orange County image--a clean-cut, good-looking young person. We don’t want someone to drive up in their Porsche or their Mercedes and be scared that some irresponsible child is going to take the wheel of their car.”

Valets are expected to run when they fetch cars, whether or not customers ask them to hurry.

For the most part, the confidence drivers place in parking valets is justified. The process is usually uneventful, and although that’s good news for car owners, it can make the working day pretty boring, say veteran valets. One of their favorite methods of relieving that boredom is to reminisce about those rare instances when something out of the ordinary has happened.

Like the cars that get, um, misplaced--almost always temporarily. Or the driver who accidentally left his pet python in the car. Or the private party in the hills overlooking Laguna Beach, where the road was so steep only two of 100 guests were brave enough to stop their cars in front of the house, condemning a crew of valets to an afternoon of thumb-twiddling. Or the guy with the Lamborghini who made the valet run alongside while he parked the car himself.

Valet Todd Bullock can understand drivers like that last one easier, in a way, than those who casually toss him the keys and walk away.

“I’ve had guys give me half a $50 bill when they go in and say, ‘If it looks the same when it comes out, you’ll get the other half.’ ”

Bullock works at South Coast Plaza, where shoppers can pay $2.50 and step right into the store. “There are ladies who come in in the morning and won’t leave until night. All day, they call us in to carry their bags out to the car,” he says.

During the Christmas season, however, many shoppers will wait as long as an hour and a half to get their cars parked rather than trying to find a space themselves, he says.

Some people are in such a hurry to get their cars parked that they don’t want to take the time to give their names or get their claim tickets, says David, a valet at an Anaheim hotel who asked that his last name not be used.

“Sometimes they treat you like morons,” he says. “You ask their name and they say, ‘I don’t want to waste time standing here talking to a parking attendant.’ ”

But names and tickets are more than just a formality, David says. “We had a guy come up a while back and say he had lost his ticket, but he described the car, a Porsche, so the valet went and got it for him. A couple of hours later when the real owner came out, they realized what had happened. So now if people don’t have their ticket, we have to see their driver’s license.”

“A lot of people see valet parking as a subservient job,” says Randy Gray, who worked as a valet off and on for six years while he earned a bachelor’s degree and a teaching credential. “They see it as the same type of job as a waiter or bartender, except we get a little less respect. But we’re handling a lot more valuable property than any waiter or bartender ever has.”

At first, he says, valets get a thrill out of driving an expensive, high-status car. “It’s funny to see the looks on their faces the first time they see a Rolls or a Ferrari,” Gray says. “But some of the novelty wears off and (it becomes) ‘give me a Buick or a Cadillac, something that’s easy to park.’ ”

Some valets make themselves at home in the cars they park, David says, changing or even resetting stations on the radio, sometimes bringing their own tapes to play in the stereo.

Where a car is parked can be an important part of how it’s treated at some places, says John Gocke, who runs the valet parking lot at Josh Slocums restaurant on Coast Highway in Newport Beach. “It’s a real small lot, and on weekend nights, we get real busy, so we try to keep all the Mercedeses, Porsches and Ferraris up and on the lot. The clunkers go across the street.” Gocke says that although some restaurant valet services routinely put the most expensive cars up front, he’s a more equal-opportunity parker. “It depends on whether they give me money, not what kind of car it is,” he says.

Carter says there’s really no such thing as “up front” at such places as South Coast Plaza or big hotels. “Even at country clubs, we try not to do that. You get 300 people, and you’re going to have 40 or 50 Mercedeses and Porsches. You can’t park all of them up front, but sometimes you have to say ‘no’ gracefully and tell them, ‘we’ll keep it as close as we can. If someone is going to insist upon that and pay you $20 for it, what are you going to tell the next guy that comes in and wants his car up front?”

Carter says he isn’t sure why being “up front” is so important to some car owners. “Either they want to be able to get out early, or they want to be seen, or they think there’s better security there.”

David says car owners don’t worry about parking position at the hotel where he works, but they do want favors when they’re ready to leave. “You’ll have a convention, everybody’s leaving at once, and they’re yelling, ‘I want my car now !’ There may be 50 people ahead of them. Sometimes, you tell them OK just to shut them up. And then they start bragging, ‘I’m getting my car now .’ And everybody else starts screaming, ‘If he gets his car now, why can’t I get mine?’ It’s like a chain reaction.”

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