The history of Green Timbers Pub dates back to a time when smoking was allowed in B.C. bars but opening on Sunday was prohibited.
Plenty has changed there over the past 42 years, but not everything.
“We consider this the longest continuously family-owned pub in Surrey,” said Jeff Tennant, who owns the business with brother Mike and sister Sharlene.
Their father Len Tennant and mother Nora opened the pub in 1981 with partners who were bought out a couple of years after Vancouver’s Expo 86 fair, the arrival of which led to a relaxation of B.C. liquor laws.
Len, who worked as a planner in Vancouver, and Nora, who looked after the books, continued to run the pub until 2000, when the reigns were passed to sons Jeff and Mike, who now run the pub and adjacent liquor store, respectively.
“My dad liked this area for the pub,” Jeff recalled. “It was just a good location near Green Timbers Forest, with Fraser Highway eventually developing, there was no school nearby or any competitors that were within the allowable distance at the time in 1981 — different rules, right? Nowaways you can put a liquor store across the street from a liquor store, it doesn’t matter anymore. Things have changed.”
Gift Shop playing Tragically Hip tunes at Green Timbers Pub on a recent Saturday night.
— Tom Zillich (@TomZillich) April 25, 2024
For the Tennant family, it's been a long time running the pub in #SurreyBC.
(See what I did there?)
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Today, the Tennant brothers have now operated the pub/store business longer than their parents did, with Sharlene more of a silent partner.
It was a pub only for the first five years, and then the liquor store opened in 1986.
Other pubs have since come and gone and changed ownership, but Green Timbers is still there on 148 Street, south of Fraser Highway.
“It’s been a fun, wild ride, and there’s been many, many changes,” Tennant recalled. “Like, this wall is where the pub was built originally, only up to here, and then we expanded a little section here, a little section there, several renovations over the years. The ’80s were different when pubs were closed Sundays, and then Expo 86 came around and allowed you to be open on Sundays. You weren’t even allowed to open on days where they were having elections — they shut the pubs down so people would vote, otherwise they’d be in the pub, right?”
Smoking was allowed in the pub, and then it wasn’t.
“Then we went through the HST, that was always fun,” Tennant added. “We had the smoking rooms. There’s just a lot of peaks and valleys, what is allowed in these businesses, and not, over the years. But we’ve managed to survive, which has been good.”
On a Saturday night in February, Tennant’s birthday was celebrated there with live music by Gift Shop, a Tragically Hip tribute band.
The pub’s stage is dual purpose in an area where tables and chairs are, typically.
“That used to be an elevated area, and we had the log cabin actually built and constructed into that section. We still refer to that section today as the cabin.”
Wait, a cabin?
Yeah, an actual cabin.
“Staff who are new here wonder about this cabin we talk about, because none of the wood is left anymore,” Tennant explained. “My dad was looking to find some old relics for the pub walls, to give it real farming feel in here. They went around to a number of the farms in the area asking if anyone had old wagon wheels, an old sickle or hoe that could put up on the walls, farming equipment. So one old guy says, ‘You can go to my cabin out the back there and you can have everything. Take the whole bloody cabin if you want.’ So that’s what they did, took the whole thing.”
The partners disassembled the old cabin and rebuilt it in the pub.
“It had a window cut into it and there was a fireplace in there, an actual cabin. I could probably find photos of it somewhere.
“What’s really comical is that it wasn’t removed until the very end of smoking in bars,” Tennant added. “There’s a wood cabin with wooden walls everywhere, wooden planks, shingles, everyone smoked in it, and it wasn’t until the smoking ban was in full effect that a fire inspector came through and said it was a fire hazard and that we needed to take down 60 per cent of the wood. So that’s when we decided to take it down and get rid of the whole wood look. It was a lot darker back then, a lot fewer windows. The blinds were always drawn. That was the old look of a pub. We decided to open it up with a bunch of windows and make it brighter in here.”
Len Tennant had always wanted to make his pub feel like a tavern in the States, with pull-tabs. By 2000, he began pulling out of the business, but stayed involved as his sons learned the business.
“He started to enjoy his retirement,” Jeff recalled. “He developed cancer in 2010 or 2011. By around 2018, cancer took over and he passed away in June of 2018. He managed to make it to 70 years old. We enjoyed his 70th birthday together as a family and did a final Christmas together and an Easter, and then he passed on.
“My mother is still around and still lives in the same house,” he added. “She’s the gel that keeps the family together, always organizing dinners and get-togethers and stuff and the very active grandmother. My brother is the final Surrey resident of the family, and everyone else lives in Langley now. Back then our family home was at 128th and 92nd in Surrey, in the Cedar Hills area. My parents were there until around 2010, close to 30 years.”
With SkyTrain coming to Fraser Highway, the pub and surrounding area might look a lot different in a decade. What will and won’t be redeveloped remains uncertain.
“The plans are for high-density,” Tennant noted, “so they’re looking for highrises here and we happen to have the only commercial unit that’s in the area. Our door gets knocked on quite often by people who want to work with us or purchase us. But I’ve said, ‘I’ll let you know in about five years. I’m still happy doing what I’m doing.’ I don’t really have any desire to leave — although I hear people tell me all the time that we’ve sold. I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, what did we get?’”
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