Valet parking is one of those eye-rolling Los Angeles institutions that is probably here to stay, much like the inexplicable line of customers outside Pink’s hotdogs. Compulsory valet service is annoying and pricey for residents and a source of great derision among visiting LA bashers (to Hell with them anyway), but in a pinch, or when weather, time constraints, or serious shortage of parking arise, it’s a necessary evil.
Don´t even THINK of parking here
Let’s say I’m running late to dinner, and my friends are already at the restaurant waiting for me. Then I’m obliged to valet park. No fair trolling the streets for a free spot when I’m already keeping people waiting. I look at it as penance for being late. Maybe that $8 will get me out the house ten minutes earlier next time.
The most irritating instance of valet parking, however, isn’t the chic nightclubs and restaurants that charge top dollar to park your car. It’s the more casual spots, the nickel-and-dimers who charge a few bucks when they have no business offering valets in the first place. At no time do I ever drive away from a valet stand feeling like I got a deal, unless it’s at big talent agency or production company in Century City that provides the service for free. But those times I’m usually too busy stewing about the pitch meeting I just tanked to care about the ten bucks I saved.
In parts of town where parking is scarce, like Hollywood, then valet parking is useful. In trendier parts of the city, like Hollywood, it’s also obnoxiously expensive. Shelling out $10 to roll up to Hyde is part the glitterati game you buy into when you go to such places–as is the $12 martini. (Bottle service, however, is ridiculous under any circumstances. Three hundred dollars for a bottle of Skyy and some mixers? Suck me.)
At least the valet operations at those trendy haunts serve a purpose–finding a parking spot for cars in areas with little or no parking, and most important, allowing beautiful, underdressed women in six-inch heels and impossibly tight skirts to simply “be beautiful” without the indignity of having to baby-step a couple of long city blocks at the risk of twisting an ankle, freezing to death or being accosted by the corner meth dealer with leering eyes, a rude mouth and too much time on his hands.
According to Los Angeles’s traffic officials, a great deal of congestion in crowded areas comes from drivers circling the streets in search of free or metered parking. Valets, to a degree, cut down on such congestion. But in areas of the city where the parking situation is a little more forgiving, or in some places ample, then valets become unnecessary. And at restaurants that have their own parking lots, the presence of a valet is not only useless, but offensive. It’s nothing but a clumsy and inflammatory attempt to bilk a few extra dollars from customers.
For some reason, towns like Studio City, Sherman Oaks and Encino seem especially prone what I call the “Fuck-you valet” – compulsory, useless and more of a hindrance than a help.
Take Casa Vega , that license-to-print-money, dark cave of a cantina in Sherman Oaks that has an hour wait seven nights a week, despite mediocre fare and airport-quality margaritas. My own Baptist grandmother in South Carolina makes better nachos and she’s about as Mexican as a hockey game. Casa Vega has it’s own large, easily accessible parking lot a stone’s toss from the front door. You’re just not allowed to use it. You’d think a place that should be thanking it’s customers for 40 years of robust patronage would be happy with the profits garnered by its overpriced menu, but no. They want to round out the raping with a little post meal shake-down at the valet stand.
What is the point, really, of having valets at a restaurant that has it’s own large parking lot? The lot easily accommodates the restaurant at full capacity and street parking isn’t that bad around there anyway. Having a little more space for things like parking is one of the reasons people move to the valley in the first place. What’s worse, bordering on the criminal, is when you drop your car at the valet, then go inside to find that the wait is, say, a breezy ninety minutes. You decide you’d rather go elsewhere. You return to the valet, sometimes before your car has even been parked, only to find that they still want to charge you. Granted, sometimes they’ll let you go free (or with a tip) but it’s not a given. I’ve seen it happen.
I’m never one to throw compliments in the direction of Jerry’s Deli, but at least the one in Studio City, which has a smaller parking lot than Casa Vega on a stretch of Ventura that has fewer metered spots, still doesn’t charge for parking. Then again, where else can you pair a candy-appletini with chicken piccata and a side of kreplach and not cause the waiter to bat an eye. That place has a menu from Mars.
There are a few places along the boulevard that warrant their valet service. Cafe Bizou sits on one of the tighter stretches for parking and yet their valet is only a couple of bucks. And despite their dining chairs, which seem to have been stolen from the breakfast room at the nearest Raddison, the $2 corkage fee is a surefire crowd pleaser. Talk about knowing your clientele.
Getting in and out of Senor Fred is also helped by the presence of valets, but the attitude there is a little more mercantile. Like Firefly in Studio City, Senor Fred wears its over-pricedness like a badge of honor (as a tip of the hat to their desire to turn Ventura Boulevard into Sunset Boulevard of the north—a quest that never seems to take hold) and is reflected not just in their menu pricing, but at the valet stand as well.
Moving farther down Ventura into Encino, however, we find the two most egregious offenders of the fuck-you valet. And both of them are chains. Islands restaurant, a burger and taco enterprise that for years has remained appealing to value-minded customers offers “endless mugs” of soft drinks, enormous portions, and, in a recent development, free fries with all burgers and sandwiches–all served with friendly, south-of-the-border flair–or is it Polynesian? I can never tell, with their Mexican hamburgers and Hawaiian tacos. The Islands in Encino has perhaps the most spacious parking lot on the boulevard, and yet, even on a dull Wednesday afternoon recently, I was stopped at the entrance by a bored young man eager to park my car–for the required $2.
It would be so nice to park ones car in that spacious lot, stroll into the restaurant to gorge myself on Baja tacos and bottomless cold beer (alcohol refills aren’t free; I just pretend they are.) Then that fifty yard journey back to my car would serve as a digestive after-meal walk. I’d really feel like I was getting a deal. Instead, thanks to all those delicious frosty-glassed Coronas, I forget to have my ticket validated from Skip at the hostess stand and have to trudge back inside to get stamped just so I can pay three bucks for the privilege of having a complete stranger adjust my perfectly positioned car seat for his four second drive to the front door.
Honestly, what is the point?
And then there’s Encino branch of Buco di Beppo, a faux Italian eatery that stole it’s entire concept and family-style menu from Carmine’s in Times Square, right down to the menu board font and quaint Italianate photographs on the wall. Again, we find a restaurant that has it’s own convenient parking lot and forces customers to use the valet. I refuse. I park on the street no matter how far the walk, but I could sniff out a free parking spot in a cobweb of crosswalks, fire zones and emergency room drop-off lanes. But that’s me.
Here’s a perfectly reasonable solution. How about making valet in these places optional instead of mandatory? Plenty of elderly folks and lazy fatties with four pounds of alfredo sauce in their to-go tubs would still happily pay a few dollars for the convenience of curbside valet. As for the rest of us, get out of our way. We’re trying to park.
Ventura Boulevard: defending Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley with a gauntlet of Ralphs supermarkets, coffee shops and cheap sushi. If you need an auto parts store, you’re screwed. Valet prices may vary.
Photo by Aaron Black.
Posted by Aaron Black at 9:59 AM