Valet parking goes far out
Suburban malls, restaurants, even a Y are taking the keys
FRANKLIN - Outside a former textile factory-turned-trendy Italian restaurant, a scene unfolded here on a recent Saturday night reminiscent of Boston's Back Bay - albeit with a suburban twist.
A dark blue Honda Odyssey minivan pulled up, shifted into park, and idled. A young man in a bright red jacket scurried over and opened the driver's door for the stay-at-home mom. Once the minivan cleared out, he hopped in and drove away. Well, actually, he drove the vehicle a few feet, to the parking lot behind the mill.
"I'm lazy," said the minivan's driver, Jane Claffey, of Wrentham, as she entered Incontro Restaurant & Lounge for a ladies' night out. "As soon as I see the word 'valet,' I jump on it."
Valet parking - a staple of Boston's fine-dining scene - is revving up in Boston's suburbs, even in the far-flung corners. Suburbanites are handing their keys to curbside attendants in charming red-brick town centers; sprawling malls, such as the Natick Collection; and even at a YMCA - yes, the Y - in Woburn.
The boom may reflect a yearning for some cosmopolitan sophistication among the weekly routine of chauffeuring kids to school or soccer games. But suburban businesses also are tapping valets, ever increasingly, to combat what had previously been considered an urban problem: a scarcity of parking.
After decades of growth, parking spaces in many village centers seem to fill as quickly at times as those in downtown Boston, sending drivers on a frantic - and sometimes fruitless - hunt for any spot.
Local zoning also frequently requires that new restaurants have one parking slot for every four dining seats, but the businesses don't always have room on their sites for that much parking. So they have turned to valets in the evening to park cars at "satellite lots," leased from banks or other daytime businesses, believing most patrons wouldn't want to walk that far from those locations to their eating establishment.
"Some businesses are finding that valet parking is a less expensive way to provide parking than building additional parking spaces or garages," said Jim Gallagher, transportation planner for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. "A parking garage costs $20,000 to $50,000 for each parking space."
The proliferation of suburban valets has elicited some snarky comments in online restaurant reviews. A Beverly woman wrote on yelp.com, a website that allows users to review restaurants in their areas, that valet parking at a Polcari's in Woburn was "idiotic" because the parking lot is adjacent to the restaurant.
"A joke" is what a Quincy woman termed valet parking at Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery in Braintree because there is plenty of parking at the neighboring South Shore Plaza in Braintree. And one person noted on citysearch.com, another website that allows users to post reviews, that Incontro's mandatory valet parking was a shock, asking, "Aren't we in Franklin?"
Yes indeed, the person was in Franklin - across the street from a 99 Restaurant. But two years ago, Incontro's owners found themselves grappling with a problem more common to Boston some 40 miles away: a chronic parking shortage. While the stately granite mill that houses Incontro boasts 14,000 square feet inside, it was built 125 years ago when folks mostly walked to work, so the parking lot is small. Local officials also prohibit street parking in this part of town, near Interstate 495.
"We were turning customers away because there wasn't enough parking," explained co-owner Jim Clarke, standing in the restaurant's second-floor Metropolitan Lounge early Saturday evening, as patrons mingled around a gigantic rectangular bar, lounged in leather couches, and shot pool at several Brunswick gold crown pool tables.
So roughly four months after its February 2006 opening, the restaurant called in the valets, paying a company between $325 and $425 to provide the mandatory service on a given Friday or Saturday. Five to eight valets park about 250 vehicles a night "crush style" - with cars blocking other cars - in a parking lot adjacent to the restaurant and a smaller lot at an industrial building next door.
Unlike Boston, though, where customers are charged between $10 and $20 for the service, Incontro's service is complimentary to customers - as it is at most suburban businesses.
(But please don't forget to tip the valet.)
"We assume at least $3 a car and hope for $5 a car," said Andrew Hurwitz, a 21-year-old art major at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, who opens each vehicle door with a smile, while making direct eye contact with the customer. "I've gotten a couple of fifties before and one guy gave us a $75 traveler's check. This is the place where you will get the big tips."
The concept of valet parking in the suburbs in not totally foreign - Luciano's Restaurant in Wrentham has been offering the perk for nearly two decades. But it's the fast and furious growth in the use of valets that's new. Many developers, regional planners, and valet services expect the trend to grow, especially as restaurants tap suburbanites' appetite for fine dining closer to home, rather than an expensive, time-consuming trip into Boston.
Two soon-to-be-built upscale shopping and dining destinations - Legacy Place in Dedham and Westwood Station in Westwood - both intend to offer valet parking, while National Amusements, which will have a luxury cinema at Legacy Place, is exploring valet service at other theater locations, such as Randolph.
"Valet parking is so common in suburban LA and other suburban areas; I don't know why the Boston area has been so slow to adapt to it," said Jay Doherty, president of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, the lead developer of Westwood Station. "If people can save time and have a more enjoyable experience by valet parking, they will pay for it."
At least one spot bustling with valets - the North Suburban YMCA in Woburn - is self-conscious talking about the service because it doesn't mesh with its nonprofit status. Amy Turner, the gym's executive director, emphasized that the Y instituted free valet parking about a year ago during peak hours to improve safety. Many vehicles were driven fast and the small lot was often jammed with parked cars, risking the safety of young children and senior citizens as they walked from their vehicles to the gym.
Now those folks can simply get out of their vehicles at the gym's front door.
Some suburban town leaders worry that the increasing popularity of valet parking could spark a backlash similar to one in Boston, where blocking off streetside parking for valet stands frustrates many a driver looking for a space. Norwood town officials have been debating for months whether allowing the Middle Eastern restaurant Byblos to monopolize two downtown parking slots for a valet stand will spawn demand from other potentially interested eateries or resentment from other businesses that lose access to those slots.
"We would like to help out the merchants as much as we can, but we don't want to create a circus," said Gerard Kelleher, a Norwood selectman and chairman of the downtown steering committee, who was optimistic that common ground could be found.
For some consumers, any trade-off is well worthwhile.
"I like to be pampered," said Linda Gagne, a sales director from Bellingham, who had dinner at Incontro Saturday night. "It's nice to have the Lexus drive up and know it's mine."
James Vaznis can be reached at jvaznis@globe.com 