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Valet Operators Embrace New Technology

Many of today’s parking executives were “car jockeys” before becoming entrepreneurs or managers. Indeed, the barriers to entry into the valet business were, and remain, no higher than a peg board, strong legs and an easy smile.

Valet industry pioneer and longtime National Parking Association (NPA) member Herb Citrin remembered his own humble start in the business in a 2006 interview. “One of the owners of Lawrey’s saw my dad at the House of Murphy [a Beverly Hills restaurant where the elder Citrin ran the parking concession] and said ‘We’re opening a restaurant down the street called Lawrey’s The Prime Rib. Would you like the parking concession?’ My dad said yes and on June 1, 1938, one month before I was 16 years old, I went to work at Lawrey’s.”

Citrin went on from that humble beginning to found Valet Parking Service, one of the nation’s most prominent and respected firms. Their

trademark red jackets have been seen annually at curbside for the Academy Awards since the 1940s. Yet the valet industry also has had more than its share of so-called “fly-by-night” firms that lack proper insurance, don’t follow labor laws, and openly engage in revenue skimming and other questionable practices.

Of course, reputation and membership in professional organizations like the NPA continues to define the difference between professional firms and the fly-by-nights. However, as Citrin helped define professionalism at the industry’s birth, a new wave of valet pioneers is shaping the industry’s future, using cutting-edge technologies to set themselves apart in a marketplace crowded with legitimate – and illegitimate - competitors.

“For the operators, it differentiates them from their competitors when competing for new business,” says Dave Miller, founder and president of JTECH systems, a manufacturer of a valet paging system. “When providing these systems to their clients, the guest experience is enhanced resulting in larger tips. The operators have an opportunity for additional income for VIP service.”

These new technologies address challenges that valet operations have faced since Herb Citrin parked his first car in 1938.

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