Same thing happened in St. Louis. One day something like eight Tim Horton stores opened, and not too long afterward they closed and TH announced they were leaving the market.
Tims (Yes, that’s how they spell it) opened here in Beijing last July, and just a few kilometers from my apartment. I’ve looked in the place, and have even followed their official WeChat account; however, I’ve yet to actually order anything. Their menu is quite limited, ISTM.
I forgot to add the link to the story about this.
After l had heard my Canadian cousins (literal cousins) go on and on about Tim’s I went straight there the first time I was in Canada in 1994 (Toronto) Was thoroughly unimpressed. Have been there once on each of my six subsequent visits to Canada (last time was in 2018, Halifax NS) and if anything they are worse.
I thought it would at least be something like Chik Fil A is to fast food chicken. Nothing great but at least recognizably better than KFC/Popeyes/etc. But nope. Not any better than Dunkin or McDonalds and certainly not even near Starbucks.
The only reason for pumping it up seems to be some kind of nationalism. Same thing really for Swiss Chalet.
I have to say the next generation of Canadians (millennials and Gen Z) I’ve met don’t seem to care for either Tims or Swiss. Maybe it’s because they’re more Bougie while their parents generation was more working and middle class first generation immigrants (in my extended family).
I guess only a blind side-by-side tasting will confirm what I believe to be true.
Maybe I am under the spell of the Canadian Tim coffee. I acknowledge that is possible.
mmm
ETA: This article talks about how the public’s declining opinion of Tim Hortons restaurants changed its opinion of TH coffee.
I’m not a coffee drinker, so I can’t speak to that, but in other aspects, they used to be much better. Others have noted the shift from in-store baking to centrally based deliveries, for instance. They also moved a lot more into breakfast and lunch sandwiches, and the like, which to my mind have never been more than merely adequate. You won’t get food poisoning, but you won’t really enjoy it either.
My take on it is, about 20-30 years ago, they were enough better than the competition that they began to dominate the market for donut shops. Locally we used to have 3 or 4 brands, but now, I’d be hard pressed to think of a place for donuts that weren’t either Tims, or a high-end boutique type place. Once they had that big a share of the market, they started thinking more in terms of increasing their profitability, instead of customer acquisition and retention. Now we’re at a point where just about everyone would prefer to buy donuts someplace else, but there are no other places, or at least, no convenient places.
And no one else seems to want to try to enter the market under these conditions. Krispy Kreme tried to enter the local market a few years ago, and it didn’t really work out. There’s a few stores, but not as many as originally planned, and no indication that they’re going to add more.
As it happens, Krispy Kreme also tried to enter the Houston market as well and did not do well. The local franchisees weren’t any good and the chain tried to expand too fast. All the stores shut down. But there are a few new ones that have opened up in the last 5 years under different franchisees and at a much slower pace.
Like a lot of people, Texans like their local brands to the point of irrationality. Even Krispy Kreme couldn’t really compete against Shipley’s. I could see something similar happen here with Tim Hortons unless they’re really smart, bide their time, and find some better way of differentiating themselves.
There is a Tim Hortons in New Jersey I pass pretty regularly. I am not a coffee drinker so I can’t comment on that. I found the donuts to be inferior to DD. I ordered one of the sandwiches that looked really good on the menu. It was disgusting I had to throw it out. I haven’t been back.
Tim Horton’s quality has gone downhill since 2014 when they were bought out by ‘Restaurant Brands International’.
Tims had a very good formula: simple, high quality food and good coffee. Where everything Starbucks had was dripping with sugar, you could get a simple sandwich at Tim Hortons. While a muffin from Tim Horton’s was just a fresh muffin, Starbucks would have sugary fillings and icing on top and all sorts of crap in it.
Tim Horton’s pricing was better, too. A large coffe was $1.85 while the same thing from Starbucks would be $3.25. If you are drinking one every day, that’s a $40/mo difference. I used to stop and get a breakfast sandwich and a coffee for under $5. The same thing at Starbucks would be nearly twice the price - and not as healthy or tasty.
Then they got purchased, and immediately the menu changed to the same kind of sugary stuff everyone else was selling, the quality of the ingredients declined, and from my point of view most of it became, if not inedible at least a lot less desirable. I rarely go there anymore.
They also cut costs by eliminating staff, which drove up turnover rates and caused constant ordering errors. It got so bad at one point that there was probably a 50/50 chance that whatever you got at the window wasn’t correct. So then everyone had to go through the process of checking to make sure they got what they ordered before driving on, which slowed down the drive-through.
Ten years ago, every Tim Horton’s seemed to have a huge line of cars in the morning, at lunch, and during the drive home. Now the lines seem to be about half the size. I think they are bleeding customers.
Um.
Kardashians ?
'Nuf said 
One has to wonder if the water supplies could be markedly different.
One of my summer jobs in college was working at a bagel bakery/restaurant in the New Haven area (one owned by the Lender family). One customer insisted to me that bagels in New York City were better because of the water there. I was and am skeptical, in that I expect little difference between the water in NYC and in suburban Connecticut.
In that one (NYC bagels), the role the water plays apparently has more to do with final texture than taste:
With coffee, there seems to be some science to the notion that water has a discernable impact on end-product taste:
Water and the Taste of Coffee - Specialty Coffee Association
[Shit. Now I want a bagel and coffee !]
I like the hot breakfast sandwiches and the fact that they have English Breakfast tea, as I’m not a coffee drinker. I’m still wishing for a maple syrup cruller, but the honey ones are okay.
Water can make a difference, but are we to expect Canadian municipal water is of both uniform and high quality through the country? That seems a rather unbelievable stretch.
I live 20 minutes or so from Canada. I think I can see a Tim Horntons in Windsor across the river.
I…have no idea if the border is open right now, but I am downright tempted to go over and grab a coffee. It…it…just can’t be that different.
Borders sorta open, moose out front should have told you.
Double vaxxed and a PCR test within 72 hours of crossing and you too can have a perfectly adequate Canadian coffee.
Tim’s is a popular Canadian tradition. Largely because it provided a place to enjoy coffee, chat and pastries in a thousand small towns and was better than other chains outside of Quebec. And often their gas stations. Founder Ron Joyce expanded his restaurant all over Canada. It was bought by Burger King than a Brazilian consortium. Joyce was horrified they went from making all their donuts fresh by skilled bakers to using central plants to ship them frozen. They were once much less generic, not even always the same size.
They offer a selection of pretty good pastries including good bagels and cookies, many donuts and little donut balls (Timbits) and very basic soups and sandwiches, better at breakfast. The coffee is just okay, but can be ordered in a box to serve twelve, so is a popular treat at work. They sell the raw coffee at grocers and people still buy it, so some like its burnt flavour more than I. The dark roast is better. I’ve had friends from China to Mexico a little surprised at its popularity. It is fast, friendly, reasonably priced and unpretentious. You’ll probably like it. You might not understand the hype (Van Houtte in Quebec is way better). . It is now trying to be too much to too many people. They should go back to making great donuts if you ask me, but the future of carb heavy bakeries is unclear.
Well, good luck to 'em either way. No skin off my back whether they succeed or not.
They’re competing with popular local chains that still make donuts fresh in store every day and also have decent (not great) coffee available in gallon (or larger) cartons.
We had them here in Minnesota for a hot minute and I was thrilled, because tea. But the person who held the MN franchise didn’t think he should have to share some communal cost (advertising before the stores were open, perhaps? Advertising outside of MN? I don’t know) has been forced to close all of our outlets and now Dunkin Donuts is trying to make inroads.
Traditionally, MN got most of its pastries from in-store bakeries at supermarkets and traditional bakeries. Donut chains did not survive because we were habituated. Now though, most supermarkets use the centrally-made and frozen ones, which aren’t as good as fresh made. It has been interesting to watch the struggle. But I want Timmie’s back.