Interesting. So it ain’t just Chicago. Wonder where else they’ve experienced this.
Hmm, I haven’t been back to the Detroit area much in the last few years… wonder if the Krispy Kremes around there are still open.
The same thing happened in Calgary. Funnily enough, there’s a Tim Hortons there now where a Krispy Kreme stood for a short time.
I think you might be on the wrong trail with Tim Hortons and doughnuts - as far as I can tell, not being a coffee drinker, it’s all about the coffee. The doughnuts are just for bringing in to work on Fridays. 
So, going back to my query, other than the existence of a large doughnut chain in Canada, there is no sociological speculation why it is so pervasive within its culture?
I always thought doughnuts were a quintessentially American obsession. Surprised to hear Canada surmised as beating us.
I read an article on Tim Hortons a couple of years ago and it had an explanation…I can’t find that, but I looked at Wikipedia and it has pretty much the same explanation as what I remember reading in the article:
“The company had removed the apostrophe after signs using the apostrophe were considered to be breaking the language sign laws of the Province of Quebec. The removal of the apostrophe allowed the company to have one common sign image across Canada.”
You may be right (according to this, though I cannot find it in the English FAQ), but OTOH there doesn’t seem to be any problem with names like Wal-Mart and Burger King.
I think the idea is that Quebec has laws that differ from the other Canadian provinces’, so the legal requirements for customer fidelisation programs may not be the same. It’s certainly legal all the same, but a business may find it too much of a hassle to create programs that are legal across several different jurisdictions.
I wasn’t impressed with their donuts, but every time I go to Canada, my first stop is Tim Hortons for a cup of coffee. It’s the best coffee I’ve ever had. I had some Canadian friends mail me a can of Tim Hortons coffee a few years ago and I could not duplicate it in my home coffee maker. It’s not only the coffee, but the way they brew it. There’s some proprietary trick to it.
Most of us just assume it’s the crack they put in it. 
Seriously, the line-ups for a cup of coffee! You can’t swing a cat without hitting a place to buy coffee, but people will line-up for Tims coffee every day.
Buffalo is somewhat infamous for lacking chains that have a presence in most similarly-sized metropolitan areas. Still, there’s about 100 Tim Hortons in the area, according to their web site, and more are under construction. As with DD in Boston, along most major streets in the Buffalo area, there will be one or two Tim’s every mile or so. The Buffalo market is saturated with Tim’s no less than any city in Canada.
Almost like they’re preparing to welcome the invasion forces.
Seriously, my speculation is that high calorie warm greasy food, like doughnuts and poutine, are more likely to become cultural icons in a colder weather higher physical activity country.
Newtown exists, on Crescent Street in downtown Montreal. Some people may have bitched about it (someone always does), but it isn’t in violation of any language laws. The Office québecois de la langue française does investigate complaints of this nature, but the fact is anyone can make a complaint, so while it often makes the news, it doesn’t mean there actually was an issue.
I remember a story once years ago about a complaint that a pet store’s parrot only greeted customers in English. The English-language media likes to write stories about these things and the ROC gets all riled up about the ridiculous language laws, but there is very rarely any law actually being broken.
Tim Hortons, Eatons and other stores often choose to drop apostrophes and unify their signage not because they are in violation of any laws, but because it allows for lower costs and unified marketing in both English and French regions. McDonald’s has kept the apostrophe, while Wendy’s got creative and simply replaced it with a maple leaf.
Tim Horton played for the Buffalo Sabres.
This seems likely. The OQLF only responds to citizen complaints (i.e. there is no “language police”), and probably has to investigate when there is a complaint, but some vigilante groups make complaints about businesses that aren’t even close to where they live, and sometimes aren’t even violating the letter, let alone the spirit, of the law. But then the investigation makes the news, especially in English-language media.
Civil law has nothing to do with “not valid in Quebec” offers, though. It has to do with a provincial law for contests (including lotteries and sweepstakes) that requires licensing and higher standards of transparency than the other provinces. Quebec is usually ahead of the other provinces in consumer protection rules; it is the only province that has enforced federal and provincial usary laws against “pay-day loan” companies, for instance. The other provinces eventually got down to negotiating with the industry, but it was a non-issue in Quebec.
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It would interesting to see whether the apparent Canadian obsession with donuts preceeds the spread of chains like Tim Hortons, Coffee Time and Country Style (the latter two are Toronto-area and Ontario-focused chains, respectively).
I was going to say something similar. We have quite a few Tim Horton’s in Michigan, and I really don’t like their donuts. Well, compared to other donuts anyway, they aren’t gross or inedible or anything, just kinda flavorless and meh.
I still associate them with the cops. I don’t see this Canadian obsession everyone else does, and it seems to me that Tim Hortons is only brought up as Canadiana in the media in an ironic way, mocking - or at least referencing - a stereotype that doesn’t really apply.
Other than that they’re just doughnuts, and Tim Hortons is just a successful junk-food franchise. With pretty good coffee.
The amazing thing about California (and perhaps some nearby states) compared to the rest of the country is that between the time of the demise of Winchell’s and the coming of Krispy Kreme to the area, there were NO big donut chains in the state at all. Just about every donut shop was a single Mom & Pop type store.
In fact, I think in my area (SF Bay Area), Mom & Pop donut shops still vastly outnumber the chains.
Yes, I am also in the Bay Area and have been researching this. They are predominantly owned and operated by Cambodians. I learned about this in the book, Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New American.