Pushing 85, Ted Snider Is Ready To Retire

Jeff Green | Jun 13, 2013

If there has been one constant in Cloyne for the past 40 years, it has been Ted Snider.

Ted and his wife Verna built Snider’s Service Centre and Restaurant in 1972, and with the exception of hunting season and very occasional vacations, he has been there every day ever since.

Ted was raised in the house that he lives in now, along with his sister. His father died when Ted was 13, and he went to work for the Sawyer Stoll lumber mill when he was 15, in 1943. He later worked at the Wells Brothers Lumber company, where he drove a truck.

“We had to look after our own truck, and that’s how I started in on becoming a mechanic,” he said.

He eventually became a certified mechanic, and worked for 20 years at a service centre in Toronto. His wife Fern knew how to cook and run a busy kitchen, and eventually they decided to move back to Cloyne and start up their own business. They took a small piece of family land north of Cloyne that was across Hwy. 41 from the Snider family home, and built a restaurant and service centre, and Snider’s has been open ever since.

“The business has been good to me,” said Ted, as current and former customers filed into the restaurant to wish him well as the closing date of June 14 approaches for the sale of the business. “But I’ll be 85 in November, and I guess it’s time I retired.. I was able to raise my children in the country thanks to the business, and I’m grateful for that.”

Among the long-standing customers who have had their vehicles looked after at Snider’s are a fleet of buses from Martin’s Bus Lines, which were still being serviced at Snider’s up until the end of this week.

Ted Snider had hoped to be able to turn his service centre over to his sons, two of whom did become certified mechanics, but health issues made that impossible and Snider’s had been for sale for several years before a buyer came forward a few week ago.

“I know he plans to keep the restaurant open but I don’t know about the service centre,” said Ted.

Verna Snider ran the restaurant until the late 1980s, and at that time it was a busy spot for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“Verna used to make Lemon Meringue pies that stood up this high,” he said, stretching out his hand as wide as it could go, “and over the years about 150 local girls worked here while they were in high school. There were two shifts, working 7 days a week. The service centre was only open Monday to Saturday, but I was here on Sundays pumping gas. We used to take all our meals here as well. It was quite a business, but after 20 years Verna grew tired, and she stopped running it.”

Snider’s Restaurant is still the main meeting spot for a lot of people in the area even though it has only been open from 8 am to 4 pm in recent years. Verna moved in to Pine Meadow Nursing Home in January and selling the business will make it easier for Ted to visit her each day.

“The thing about Pine Meadow is that most of the staff there worked at the restaurant when they were younger. Everyone gets excellent care there,” said Ted.

As for himself, Ted figures he’ll be kept busy enough running around and visiting friends.

“I pretty well know everyone around here,” he said.