LANGLEY - Longtime Langley businessman George Tidball, founder of the Keg restaurants and, with his family, of the Thunderbird equestrian centres, died June 3. He was 83.
The descendant of pioneers and war veterans, George Tidball started his career as an accountant, worked for Alcan, and then, already the father of three young children, went to Harvard from 1959 to 1961 and majored in economics.While pursuing further studies in Chicago, the family first encountered the then-new concept of a fast food restaurant, particularly one called McDonald's. In 1967, he introduced the chain to western Canada.The Tidball family came to Langley in 1966 because their oldest daughter Kathy wanted a horse.After driving past and feeding a horse on their way to a ski hill in Penticton, George and his wife Dianne bought it for $150.By 1969, the family had bought acreage suitable for horses, near Fort Langley. Their son and daughters would compete in high school rodeos or show at the PNE.In 1970, they bought property at 200th Street and the Trans Canada Highway, creating a stable, and riding rings, dubbing it the Thunderbird Equestrian Centre.Meanwhile, George Tidball was opening the first of what would be a chain of Keg Steakhouse restaurants. One of them was attached to the Thunderbird centre. Diners in the 1980s and early 1990s watched equestrians ride and jump.The original Thunderbird park was closed in the late 1990s, and the area redeveloped into commercial and residential units. Soon the family began plans for a new Thunderbird, at 72nd Avenue and 248th Street - now one of North America's premiere show jumping locations."Langley seems smaller today than it did yesterday," said Jordan Bateman, a former Township councillor and longtime Langley resident. He met George Tidball several times, and remembered how eating at the Keg in the Country location was one of the defining experiences of Langley for many years.Tidball was always "a little bit of an outlaw," Bateman noted, as well as a huge philanthropist.