Tevie Smith is really a 75 year restauranteur that is old claims to own brought initial pizza to Vancouver when you look at the 1950s
Steve Bosch/Vancouver Sun / The Vancouver Sun
Vancouver – Tevie Smith, 75, is sitting at an outdoor dining dining dining table to start with and Cypress keeping court about the sexcapades of their buddy Wilt Chamberlain, the giant rumbles at their drive-in restaurant in Richmond when you look at the 1960s and exactly how he brought initial pizza ovens to Canada into the belated 1950s.
A lady 40 years his junior walks by, acknowledges him, and smiles.
“don’t think a word he claims!” she laughs.
Tevie smiles straight right back, then gets returning to rotating their tales. And trust me, you can find great deal of those.
Tevie – everyone calls him Tevie – is among the characters that are great Vancouver. He is been a restaurateur, a bouncer and a rounder, some guy that is been a fixture in some components of Vancouver tradition considering that the very early 1950s.
Maybe perhaps Not culture that is high head.
“He’s the past associated with Damon Runyon figures,” states one of is own earliest buddies, Basil Pantages.
“He can easily fit into anywhere, and merge because of the most useful of these, because he comes down with that cheesy ‘I would like to get acquainted with you’ feeling.”
Also if you do not understand Tevie, you could have noticed him. He is the man whom parks his old wagon that is woody a 1947 Chrysler Town and Country, regarding the road by Kits Beach. The car is hard to miss with a couple of steamer trunks tied down on top and sides made of rotting wood.
Old vehicles are one of is own interests. He has four convertibles – a 1964 Thunderbird, ’65 Corvair, ’65 Mustang, and a ’66 Beaumont – in addition to a 1930 Model A Coupe, a 1934 Packard, and another ’66 Beaumont.
They truly are the fruits of numerous many years of difficult labour.
“compose this down,” claims Tevie, that is having a birthday that is 75th for 200 during the Smoking Dog Bistro Sunday afternoon.
“It is simple to become successful into the restaurant company. What you need to complete is work 20 hours a day, seven days per week, 364 times per year. While the one you log off, Christmas time, you must get in while making yes the freezers have not gone down. time”
He understands of just exactly exactly what he talks, for many years because he did it. He started out employed by Nat Bailey at White place as he had been 13. A few years later on he relocated to destination called the Senator.
“we utilized working Friday night, Saturday evening, rest on the ground upstairs within the banquet space and fall and run your kitchen on my own on Sunday,” he recounts.
He originated in a bad household, but an entrepreneurial one: their older brother Ascher founded the Smithrite trash collection company. “He began the organization with a war-assets vehicle and $700 in veteran’s credits,” Tevie describes.
“He visited Ca on any occasion and saw Dumpster Dumpster. The town of Vancouver don’t wish to grab garbage that is commercial so he got in to the trash company. Plus he was at the navy having an other responsible for the PNE. The PNE hated the town, him the contract for the PNE trash. so that they provided”
Tevie did not make because much cash as Ascher, but he most likely had more enjoyable. He went to San Francisco to go to restaurant college after he graduated from high school in Kits in 1951. Here he discovered pizza, that has been all but unknown beyond your community that is italian.
He gone back to Vancouver after he graduated in 1955 and made a decision to take to a pizza concession out during the PNE.
“You understand where in fact the Coliseum is, well, that has been a roller coaster called the Giant Dipper. We offered pissa – it- at the Roller Coaster for 19 cents a slice because they didn’t even know what to call. And trust in me, a bite was taken by them from it after which tossed it at me. They did not like to consume that stuff. We accustomed chase them down the midway.”
Tevie’s claim to function as person that is first offer pizza in Canada ended up being disputed by their old buddy Ross Fillipone regarding the Penthouse cabaret, whom recently passed on. Fillipone said he imported the pizza that is first into Canada when it comes to Penthouse – and Tevie agrees. But he says Fillipone brought inside the range illegally, and Smith’s ovens had been Canadian guidelines Association authorized, so Smith had the very first pizza that is legal.
“the only real CSA approval had been in Montreal,” he relates.
“These Mafia kinds – it is a story that is true owned the oven business, as well as the bread business that made the crusts. These were driving an range as much as Montreal to have it authorized, because I experienced a trailer load of pizza materials coming when it comes to PNE. We introduced 14 of the little countertop pizza ovens.
“these people were likely to machine weapon these inspectors. These people were severe. ‘ exactly What have you been guys doin’? Place the stamp on!’ “
Tevie wound up starting up Vancouver’s mail order wife very very first pizza restaurant, The Snackery, at fifteenth and Granville. He additionally had Chipper’s Drive-In at # 3 path and Airport Method into the 1960s, when Richmond “was a bad, bad-ass destination.”
“night was fight night, there’d be 400 kids out in the parking lot,” he says friday. “It ended up being amazing.”
Tevie managed most of the action himself. Although he is just five foot seven, he had been a weightlifter, and quite a cookie that is tough weighing 250 pounds (113 kilograms) in the prime. (he is 165 now.) He invested a long period as a bouncer at a number of places, like the disco that is old spot Sugar Daddy’s.
“You had a battle,” he states of bouncing.
“You beat some guy up, he beat you up, whatever, you understand?”
Over time he operated many eateries, both in restaurants plus in pubs – Moose McGillicuddy’s, the Arts Club on Granville Island, the Pink Pussycat in Gastown.
But some of their escapades revolve around his years at the guys’s Athletic Club on Hornby Street, that was within the exact same building as two nightspots, Charlie Brown’s and Sneaky Pete’s. It seems like there was clearly a constant party going on in today’s world, a celebration that Tevie along with his stock promoter buddies such as for example Herb Capozzi frequently took on your way.
“We accustomed get down seriously to Sun Valley every ” Capozzi says year.
“We took Tevie, that would fall in a truck that is big with wine. He’d place it up towards the top of the hill and provide champagne and beverages to everyone, and also a time that is hilarious everyone get bombed from their brain and attempt to ski straight straight down. 1 / 2 of them got lost in the middle of the woods.”
Baseball legend Wilt Chamberlain ended up being a consistent at the guys’s Athletic Club as he stumbled on city, in which he and Tevie became good friends. Chamberlain endured seven base one inches tall, and advertised he previously intercourse with 20,000 ladies. Tevie confirms that yes, indeed, Wilt The Stilt appeared to have real means with females, although their theory about how come just a little too risquй for a household paper.
Tevie ended up being when hitched and contains three grown up children, but he is been a free of charge representative for several years – he gladly exhibits a snapshot of their latest flame, that is 35 yrs . old. He is a charmer, having an endless way to obtain entertaining stories concerning the hairdresser/prostitute whom utilized to your workplace Howe Street, the loan that is notorious Jimmy Hill (who had been gunned straight straight straight down during the resort Georgia) in addition to famous stock promoter Murray (The Pez) Pezim.
You are able to inform he will offer you a story that is good he says “this is certainly from the record,” or “You most likely can not print this.” Which occurs about every 10 moments during a 45-minute chat.
He retired through the restaurant company years ago and now spends a lot of their energy and time creating thrift shops for charities that look after pets, including the Wildlife save Thrift Store downtown.
He sorely misses their old buddy Fillipone, whom he played racquetball with each week. But broadly speaking, at 75, Tevie Smith is fairly content. He has a homely home across from Kits Beach, he has their stable of collector automobiles, he’s their dogs. And his memories.
“Life is great,” he states. “Life is actually good.”