Real Goblin

I remember fondly a time when Tim Hortons truly was a “café and bake shop”. I would travel with my grandfather and brother to the nearby, small town location and sit by the window. My order was consistent. My brother and I would split a turkey bacon club. A sweet, tangy honey mustard was spread on the underside of a warm baguette. We’d order the chili as well, which came in a bread bowl at the time. And we’d cut a frosted cinnamon roll down the middle. 

Were I to place this same order today, I’d be largely disappointed and unsuccessful. The bread bowl was quietly dropped from the menu in the mid 2010s. My delicious honey mustard was discontinued around the same time they dropped the cinnamon roll from the lineup. Even the shape of the turkey bacon club has changed. It would be far more accurate to call it a turkey bacon sandwich these days.

Many remember a time when Tim Horton’s was the simple, grounded, neighborhood café. The coffee and donuts were done well. Nothing flashy or fancy. Today, the large ads plastered on the side of your local Tim Hortons peddle Red Bull infused sugar water. 

How did we get here?

Tim Hortons – A Brief History

Tim Horton was a NHL defenseman who played the majority of his career for the Toronto Maple Leafs. In his later years, he would play for several other teams, ending his career with the Buffalo Sabres (the other teams being the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins). Horton is considered one of the greatest players in league history by the NHL. But beyond his skill on the ice, Tim Horton was a successful businessman. 

The business, which was named after the man himself, was founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario. The store slowly expanded to the rest of the region, growing to a total of 40 in the decade that followed. But the franchise would be forever changed on one fateful night in February of 1974.

Following a loss to his former team, during his time on the Buffalo Sabres, Horton began a solo drive back across the border to the City of Good Neighbors. His car, a De Tomaso Pantera, was a gift from the Sabres’ general manager (one he hoped would convince Horton to play one final season with the team in his relatively old age). 

Somewhere between Toronto and Buffalo, Tim Horton became intoxicated. During a brief stop at his office in Oakville, Ontario, he was met by his friend and business partner Ron Joyce. Joyce recognized Horton’s inebriation and tried to convince him to stay. But Horton didn’t listen. Tragically, he got back behind the wheel for the final time that night and died in a wreck that same evening.

A short time later, Ron Joyce talked Horton’s grieving widow into selling him her inherited shares of the brand, making Joyce the sole owner. She would later regret this decision and attempt a lawsuit that would end unsuccessfully. Funnily enough, Ron Joyce Jr. is now married to Jeri-Lynn Horton, daughter of Tim Horton.

The Rise of Tim Hortons

The years that followed would see the Tim Hortons brand grow substantially. Upon buying the Horton family shares for $1 million, Ron Joyce began a campaign of rapid expansion that would see the end of many of Canada’s small donut and coffee chains. 

In the 1990s, Canada became the country with the highest per-capita ratio of donut shops in the world. It remains so to this day. Also in the 90s, Tim Hortons began its first rebrand. They removed the apostrophe from the name (partially due to a violation of Quebec’s language sign laws). The chain also began a collaboration with Wendy’s. 

This idea was the brainchild of Daniel P. Murphy – who held a unique miniature monopoly of all of the Tim Hortons and Wendy’s locations on Prince Edward Island. It was in the town of Montague that he first opened a joint location for both franchises. On one side would sit Tim Hortons, on the other Wendy’s. If Tim Horton’s death was the finger that pushed the domino, then the Montague Wendy’s/Hortons was the tipping of the first domino into the second.

In 1995, Wendy’s parent company purchased the Tim Hortons franchise. This is a marriage that would last about a decade and a half, but would forever alter the chain. On the topic of the merger, the Toronto Star said: “the spectacle of another great Canadian icon…gone to Yankee burgerfat.”

Though it was Tim Horton who’s name was emblazoned in red cursive text across the storefront, it was Ron Joyce who was responsible for the rapid expansion the franchise would see in the 1980s and beyond. In 1992, Joyce was named a member of the Order of Canada – a high honor bestowed by the Canadian government – in recognition of his philanthropic efforts. As mentioned earlier, Joyce was quick to purchase Horton’s shares of the franchise from his widow for $1 million. Later displeased with this arrangement, Horton’s wife attempted to sue Joyce (unsuccessfully).

In 2006, Ron Joyce wrote a collection of memoirs about his role in the Tim Hortons story. The book was titled: Always Fresh: the Untold Story of Tim Hortons by the Man Who Created a Canadian Empire. One Canadian publication, Maclean’s magazine, criticized the book for spinning a less than true tale about the company.

It doesn’t take much reading to see that Joyce certainly wrote about himself in flattering terms.

In one passage, Ron recalls a story from his time as a police officer. 

Ron Joyce had four children and hadn’t witnessed the birth of any of them? Why not? Are you not at least curious by number three?

Here’s another anecdote worth a read:

Ron. Hey, buddy. That did not happen. This is the kind of anecdote that an out of touch celebrity tells on Jimmy Kimmel’s couch to show how far they’ve come. And not even the top billing one. This is like the Carrot Top story after Brad Pitt has already come and gone.

Nearly all of Joyce’s memoir is devoted to the Tim Hortons story. There are 250 pages of dull business lingo regarding mergers and takeovers and legal agreements. If that interests you, then by all means – read on.

A Loss of Identity

During the organization’s time as a subsidiary of Wendy’s, the brand underwent some unfortunate changes that set a poor tone for the company’s future.

2003 was one such turning point for the franchise. It was this dark time in which Tim Hortons stopped baking their donuts fresh in store. They instead began to “par bake” the donuts. Which is to say partially baking them in a singular Ontario factory and then flash freezing them for shipment to their tens of thousands of locations. Anyone who’s had a donut of theirs in the last 10 years has experienced the disappointing peeling of frosting off the top of their stale donut. The bag that customers receive their baked goods in is a death sentence for anything frosted.

By 2009, the honeymoon phase had long ended and Tim Hortons and Wendy’s parted ways. But like a person who never let the wounds of a past love heal, the beloved coffee chain entered a true rebound of a business relationship with their 2014 Burger King merger. Since

In the process of writing this article, I found a recent Tim Hortons announcement that brought a wicked smile to my face. 

That’s right. Tim Hortons is adding pizza to their already bloated menu. One without identity and lacking in the same quality that the brand was once known for. Word on the street is that the pizzas are actually not the worst thing on the menu. But have you ever had a bad pizza in your life?

Taste aside, I pity any poor nurse on their way to the night shift who waits in line for coffee behind the baboon that orders a few Tim Hortons pizzas for the road. McDonald’s famously attempted a pizza menu option in the 1990s. But the item was removed from the menu due to its longer cook time. McDonald’s does not succeed because of its quality or taste, but its speed and its convenience. Tim Hortons once was a limited franchise, beloved by Canadians nationwide. But as the brand has expanded, it’s now more fast food than anything else.

Tim Hortons Today

I was born and raised in Western New York. The first US store appeared in Tonawanda, NY in 1986. And while the brand is distinctly Canadian, it is still an essential part of the culture in this region. I am too young to properly remember what these places were like in their heyday, but I know that they’ve lost their way. By now, Tim Hortons is no more Canadian than Taco Bell is Mexican.

Canadians are a generally progressive lot. When Tim Hortons began stripping back employee benefits and paid breaks in retaliation of a Canadian minimum wage increase, the people reacted. In a 2018 survey, the once iconic Canadian brand fell from 4th “most admired” to 50th. In June of 2022, the company was investigated by Canadian federal authorities for illegal tracking of customer data through their app.

Tim Hortons can only scrape by on the reputation of their past for so long. In a 2018-19 sales report, Tim Hortons had recorded decreases in yearly revenue for eight consecutive quarters. But in the time since, they’ve proven resilient. A lot of people smarter than I am would blame inflation as the reason for this increase in revenue.

As I write this and I dig through the muck of Tim Hortons history, I’ve consumed no fewer than 5 of their coffees in the meantime. But why? Because of convenience. Tim Hortons achieved the McDonald’s model of “one on every corner”. They’re in airports, hospitals, rest stops, etc. Each time I pass a Tim Hortons in the morning, the line is long, both inside the store and in the drive-thru.

But what do I know? I’m the schmuck still drinking their coffee.