Here's what you need to know
Tim Hortons is a fast food restaurant, though it is primarily known as a coffee and donut shop and there are more of them in Canada than any other fast food chain. They are in stand alone stores on main streets, on corners, highways, in shopping mall food courts, gas stations, big box hardware stores, grocery stores, hospitals, schools. There are stores that are strictly drive thru and there are stores that are open 24 hours. In other words, they are inescapable. It wasn't always so, but in the last 15 years the number of stores and throwaway, disposable coffee cups has pretty much exploded.Some people who leave the country will bemoan that the one thing they miss the most about Canada is Tim Hortons. They mean the mediocre coffee and no-longer-in-store-baked crullers. They are a sad species. Except for the ones in Kandahar where there is also an outlet on the Canadian Forces Base for the military personnel. A teensy bit of home comfort for them.
Each year from early November until the supply runs out in January, Timmy's (for that is what we affectionately call it) changes their recyclable, takeout cups from the regular boring brown and comes up with a special holiday cup. The design is always different from one year to the next but features such feel good scenes as kids playing in the snow, snowmen, skaters, and of course hockey. The original Tim Horton was a hockey player and this features prominently in the stores promotion.
If you think this is fun, then wait till you see what happens to the cups in February.
No, really, you'll have to wait. But it is good.
What? They destroy all the left over cups so that the rest of them will become collector's items?
ReplyDeleteI sense that we will spend a lot of time in Tin Hortons this Christmas. I am not a big fan of coffee or Tim Hortons (not since they don't make fresh donuts anymore anyway), but my wife loves their coffee, so there you go. I'll try to buy for myself seasonal beers in the nearest supermarket.
ReplyDeleteIrene: they aren't meant as collectors - they are waxed paper cups used for take out coffee and are thrown away. Each store orders enough to get them through to January and when the supply runs out their next order will the regular brown cups. Winter looks dreary with the brown take out cups.
ReplyDeleteGuillaume: yeah, I'm not particularly fond of their coffee, and the "always fresh" donuts did lose a lot when they became "always fresh frozen and heated up". And at least in Qc you can buy beer in the supermarket!
ReplyDeleteAh yes but in what other strange reality can you travel the entire country, 5000 miles and never have to try different food.
ReplyDeleteI come from St Catharines Ont. a city of approx 130,000 and there are I think 4327 doughnut shops in town.
This is also where Tim Horton died when his car crashed and we used to joke about there being a little bit of Tim in each of the doughnuts
Bandobras: good to see you here! Yes, it is so true. And Hamilton is so very proud of it's Store #1.
ReplyDeleteI admired your cup the other day, and then I went to my sister-in-law's and she had coffee from Timmy's. I never heard of this restaurant until very recently, we don't have any around here.
ReplyDeleteI like the vintage images on the cups. It makes the throwaway cups seem more old fashioned.
Ah, yes... but what would Canada be without Timbits?
ReplyDeleteTimbits and Cheezies are two paticularly Canadian treats I always like to share with my American friends.
Tim Horton's coffee in BC is actually pretty good. Well, let's just say it's waaaaaay better than Starbucks, which is not saying much. :-)
I meant particularly. But you knew that. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm always a little lost on coffee discussions but I do like the Christmas scenes.
ReplyDeleteRuth: you should visit us more often ;)
ReplyDeleteJo: they don't have Cheezies in the States??? I love Timbits, especially sour cream timbits.
geewits: if I lived in such a HOT place as I probably wouldn't drink much coffee either.
Violetsky: Yes, and nice beer too...;-)
ReplyDeleteCool cups. I have to admit that I'd never heard of Tim Hortons until the kids and I stopped at one for breakfast on our trip to Canada this summer. The donuts - and I truly mean no offense by this because we had wonderful food everywhere else we went on that trip - were so bad as to be inedible. Seriously, I'm not sure I've ever thrown away a donut before. Maybe it was a freak occurrence, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteCoW: no offense taken. it was likely a freak occurrence, but they aren't as good as they used to be when they were made in store - now they are factory made and sent to each store frozen. sometimes they are not thawed completely and I've had a frozen middle in my fritter a few times. and don't ever have their BLT unless you want the 6,000 calories per bite.
ReplyDelete*lol*.. I never noticed that the Holiday cups were different from year to year.
ReplyDeleteLee Valley is selling a tool that is absolutely necessary for February....
Wondering if I should get one for the hubs. He's an American that I have now got addicted to Tims (while he was out of country, I sent him his monthly ration of Tims coffee - dutifully, until he realized how much it was costing me to mail it *lol*)
msw: actually, I never remembered what the previous years cup looked like - I discovered how different they really were when I went looking for a photo (the last one is mine, before I threw out the cup!)
ReplyDeleteI've mastered the art without a tool, but that is funny!!
We have Tim Horton's here in central Ohio. I love their coffee. Starbucks is too strong for me. Now, if they would just put one in our little town.........
ReplyDeleteSusan: thanks for visiting ... and scrolling !!
ReplyDeleteyeah, we're invading. something for the mediocre coffee crowd, which doesn't seem so mediocre compared to Starbucks.