Luxe Valet is “Pausing” Service in Philadelphia

Say goodbye to Luxe Valet in Philly. The company vows to return.

Any startup leader will tell you that if you’re going to fail — fail fast.

Armed with a sleek smartphone app and a team of drivers dressed in blue jackets, Luxe Valet is attempting to be the Uber of valet parking. It launched in Philadelphia in August to much fanfare, but is halting operations here on January 1. It’s also taking a pause in Boston.

Here’s how it works: Drivers pick up your car anywhere and store it in a secure lot. Later, a Luxe driver will deliver your car back to you — even if you’re in a different location. The company says it costs about $5 per hour.

Luxe sent this letter to its Philadelphia customers:

Thank you for being a great customer of ours. While we’ve loved serving you, today we’ve made the tough decision to pause operations in Philadelphia effective January 1, 2016. We are making this decision as part of our efforts to streamline our operations. We plan on returning to service in the future. … 

We will return to Philadelphia further down the line, so please keep a friendly eye out for our blue-clad valets in the future.

Luxe media relations representatives did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Luxe pickup zone in Philly spanned from Center City to Old City, but the company had hoped to expand that region as ridership grew.

Luxe remains operational in other cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New York and Austin.

But Boston wasn’t so lucky:

@WhiskiedGinger We’re making this decision so we can streamline our operations. We look fwd to saying we’re back soon!

— Luxe (@luxevalet) December 19, 2015

No word yet on service in Washington, D.C. The city is listed on the Luxe website but wasn’t included in the company’s list of cities where it remains operational.

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