# Canadians and doughnuts
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 9, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165 "2010-07-09T23:13:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/81 "2010-07-13T03:47:34Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> The Buffalo market is saturated with Tim’s no less than any city in Canada.
That’s not surprising. Buffalo is actually a part of Canada where the inhabitants are so clever that they send no taxes to Ottawa. 🙂
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### Author:  [@notsoheavyd3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notsoheavyd3)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/82 "2010-07-13T04:34:18Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#):
>
> When the Boston people arrived they thought it strange that their were very few Dunkin Donuts (few meaning they are more than a mile apart) here, so they decided to try out Tim Hortons since it appeared to be very similar.
You mean they contract out the donuts to a large local bakery and have them trucked in after they’ve gone stale? 😃 (Note: I only know of one Dunkies that actually makes their own donuts, hence the remark about there’s really only Dunkies left in Massachusetts.)
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/83 "2010-07-13T05:22:44Z")
Has anyone in this thread mentioned Mr. Donut yet? It was also present in West Texas, and it and Dunkin’ Donuts are the two doughnut giants in Thailand. I mentioned I worked at a Dunkin’ Donuts in West Texas; it’s so similar to Mr. Donut that the two places often swapped ingredients if one ran short. The franchise owners were friends with each other, but even if they had been friends with the folks at Winchell’s, also present, they said they could not have borrowed from there, because it was a completely different kind of mix.
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### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2010, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/84 "2010-07-13T07:04:25Z")
Mr. Donut is the chain of choice in Japan. They’re like Dunkin’ Donuts but smaller.
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/85 "2010-07-14T20:55:13Z")
I think it’s because it’s so very Canadian.
It’s not pretentious, the servers are polite, it’s open 24 hrs, the coffee is decent, the prices family friendly, it’s clean, conveniently located, the donuts are fresh. They also offer sandwiches etc, at a good price.
Perfect for before/after your kids hockey game/soccer game, break from a highway drive, grab a coffee on the way to wherever. It’s comfortable for everyone from teenagers to truck drivers, dirty construction workers or office girls.
Very, very Canadian. It’s no wonder they’ve embraced it so completely.
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### Author:  [@tingbudong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tingbudong)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/86 "2010-07-14T21:22:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> This, Tim’s marketing tells us, is honest-to-goodness Canadiana for real Canadians
Exactly. Either that, or TH has led us like lemmings into their idea of Canadiana and the working/middle class Canadian lifestyle. A country of average Joes/Janes sipping coffee, passing gossip, living the average life of Canadian mediocrity…in an average coffee shop.
TH should join forces with [Stuart Maclean](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_MacLean)…
Canada always worries about identity…I think that tag team would solve that once and for all (for better or worse…I tend to lean to the worse side).
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/87 "2010-07-14T21:46:23Z")
> [@sitchensis](#):
>
> Spokane WA, has a Dunkin, I lived there for 25 years and never went into the place. I think Spokane residents are more partial to the mom& pop shops that are around the area, or they just get them from the grocery store.
>
> We had the same experience with Krispy Kreme, seemed like all the yuppies made it a happening for about a year, then they turned to other things and all the blue collar eaters tried it once and then just kept going to the same places they’d always gone to.
There’s a Dunkin Donuts in Spokane? Where is it located? It was my understanding there _was_ a Dunkin in Spokane during the 70s but it closed long ago. There also used to be quite a few Winchell’s in town before that franchise disappeared. Since then, aside from a few Krispy Kremes, the doughnut market here is mostly dominated by independent doughnut shops and supermarket bakeries.
Of course it doesn’t really matter much to me because I don’t eat doughnuts.
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/88 "2010-07-14T22:12:17Z")
> [@tingbudong](#):
>
> Canada always worries about identity…I think that tag team would solve that once and for all (for better or worse…I tend to lean to the worse side).
Again, note that Tim Hortons is a relative latecomer to Western Canada.
“Canadian identity” and “Ontario identity” are not the same thing. 😉
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### Author:  [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/89 "2010-07-14T23:00:45Z")
> [@hogarth](#):
>
> Again, note that Tim Hortons is a relative latecomer to Western Canada.
True. Before Tim Hortons began showing up, the Prairies were populated by Country-Style Doughnut shops.
[ ](https://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/24250060_555ca337c4.jpg)
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### Author:  [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/90 "2010-07-14T23:05:12Z")
> [@hogarth](#):
>
> Again, note that Tim Hortons is a relative latecomer to Western Canada.
>
> “Canadian identity” and “Ontario identity” are not the same thing. 😉
::locks **hogarth** and **Hypnagogic Jerk** in a room and enjoys watching them sort out what a “Canadian Identity” may mean::
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### Author:  [@kfraser34](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kfraser34)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/91 "2010-07-15T00:26:02Z")
I think it is worth taking note of Crispy Creme’s attempt to enter the southern Ontario market… They got crushed in the exact manner mentioned above… a few weeks of busy crowds then the place was like a ghost town…
IMO and many other I know, they failed because all they had were donuts… they didn’t have a better coffee product than Timmy Ho’s… FWIW I felt their doughnuts were much tastier than Tim’s, thrice the fat, but tastier…
so if they failed as doughnut shop with a better doughnut… that says a lot about what Canadians value… coffee over doughnuts…
as for myself I order cookies and milk any time I am at Timmy’s with friends… unless it is morning then it is a sesame seed bagel with herb and garlic creme cheese…
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/92 "2010-07-15T00:37:40Z")
I have a TimmysFinder app on my iPhone. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/93 "2010-09-30T16:32:15Z")
And Krispy Kreme has opened in Bangkok to much fanfare. In Siam Paragon shopping center on Tuesday. Story [here](http://bangkokpost.com/business/economics/198696/krispy-kreme-given-sweet-welcome).
Thousands of people lined up waiting to get in, the first ones arriving at 10pm the night before. I kid you not. There were prizes for the first 200 customers who bought a dozen. Nos 101-200 I think just got a free second dozen with the purchase of one. But the “big” prizes went to the first five or six people. The first customer got free doughnuts for a year, emaning one dozen a week free for a year; the second customer got free doughnuts for six months. Etc.
But Jesus! It’s not as if Thailand suffers from a tragic doughnut shortage. As already related above, there are LOTS of international doughnut chains dotted throughout Bangkok and the rest of the country. Once the shopping center opened, it was utter pandemonium in the vicinity of Krispy Kreme, according to someone I know who happened to be there for other reasons besides doughnuts.
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### Author:  [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/94 "2010-09-30T16:38:34Z")
> [@hogarth](#):
>
> > [@tingbudong](#):
> >
> > Canada always worries about identity…I think that tag team would solve that once and for all (for better or worse…I tend to lean to the worse side).
>
> Again, note that Tim Hortons is a relative latecomer to Western Canada.
>
> “Canadian identity” and “Ontario identity” are not the same thing. 😉
There’s a Maple Leaf on the flag.
How many Maple trees are there in Alberta? 😉
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/95 "2010-09-30T16:46:31Z")
I always enjoyed Tim Hortons, but I was always a trifle creeped out by their marketing.
After all - the chain was named for a hockey player, Tim Horton, who died in a terrible car crash. Isn’t it just a bit insensitive to name your best-selling product “Timbits”? 😃
Also - excellent user name/OP topic.
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### Author:  [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/96 "2010-09-30T16:52:33Z")
> [@antonio107](#):
>
> > [@hogarth](#):
> >
> > Again, note that Tim Hortons is a relative latecomer to Western Canada.
> >
> > “Canadian identity” and “Ontario identity” are not the same thing. 😉
>
> There’s a Maple Leaf on the flag.
>
> How many Maple trees are there in Alberta? 😉
Lots, actually. Just not sugar maples.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/97 "2010-09-30T17:17:29Z")
Another thing that Tim’s has done very well is that “location, location, location” thing - they’re masters at finding good places for their stores, whether the drive-through kind or the mall kind. When I’m driving somewhere and want a coffee for the trip, odds are I’ll find a Tims pretty easily. They’re also good at finding good mall locations - in the main downtown mall here in Regina, there was a place where shops opened just to die - in the walkway area connecting the mall to an office tower, where people are just passing though, so wouldn’t stop to shop. But the Tims people scoped it out and realised that was just the right location for them and opened a shop there, which is booming.
The folks who run Robins Doughnuts, on the other hand, aren’t good at finding locations in the same way, and aren’t nearly as successful
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### Author:  [@trupa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trupa)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/98 "2010-09-30T18:23:31Z")
The one thing I admire most about TH is their marketing, particularly the TV adds. When I watch them, I know I am being manipulated, and yet I still get all choked up. I remember the asian man and his father reconciling at the arena one, the kid getting a coffee for the old neighbor who shovels the snow one, and expecially the one with the black immigrant man welcoming his family at the airport with winter coats and TH’s (aired during the Vancouver winter olympics).
When the TV news reported that emergency shipments of TH coffee were en route to our troups Afghanistan, they practically played O Canada as background music: our boys and girls OverThere™ are getting their double-doubles, the Taliban better watch out now! TH has somehow managed to wrap itself in the Canadian flag in a totally sincere, non-ironic way, which is all the more suprising in a country of people who almost seem to have a reflexive distrust of patriotism. Perhaps it’s because of the humility inherent in the unpretentious nature of a donut & coffee shop.
\*
(Dammit, all this talk of fried carbs I can’t eat is making me grumpy…)\*
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/99 "2010-09-30T19:58:40Z")
> [@Raygun99](#):
>
> > [@antonio107](#):
> >
> > calling people “hosers,”
>
> I don’t think anyone’s used this term non-ironically since the early 80s.
Yeah, but Canada didn’t get the 80’s until 2003.
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### Author:  [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-and-doughnuts/546165/100 "2010-09-30T20:15:26Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> > [@Raygun99](#):
> >
> > I don’t think anyone’s used this term non-ironically since the early 80s.
>
> Yeah, but Canada didn’t get the 80’s until 2003.
Based on the current fashion in Montreal, I submit the possibility that the 80s are actually happening _now_. It’s…disturbing.
I watched a man eat a Tim’s Boston creme doughnut on the metro today, and I’ve been craving one ever since. I looked around, and I swear half the train was watching him in a way that made it clear that they were thinking the same thing as me!
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