Tim Hortons

• 1. Introduction

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  Tim Hortons, called Tim's, Timmies or Timmy's by the people who line up at its counters, now runs 6,043 restaurants in 14 countries. Its headquarters are in Toronto. The menu leans on coffee, donuts, sandwiches and breakfast egg muffins, and that has made it the largest quick-service restaurant chain in Canada. A shop that sells coffee and fried dough does not usually become the subject of arguments in newspapers and courts. This one has. Who built it, and how did two very different men come to share it? What happens to a brand that many Canadians treat as a national possession when it is sold, listed on the stock market, and sold again? And what exactly is hiding under the rim of a Tim Hortons paper cup?

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• 2. Hockey Player, Police Constable

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  Tim Horton played in the National Hockey League from 1949 until he died in an auto crash in 1974. His first restaurant, in North Bay, Ontario, sold hamburgers rather than donuts. The first donut store opened on the 17th of May 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, under the name Tim Horton Donuts. Horton founded it with Jim Charade, who lived from 1934 to 2009. Charade left in 1966, returned briefly in 1970, and came back again from 1993 through 1996.

  Ron Joyce was a former police constable in Hamilton when he met Horton, soon after that first store opened. In 1965, Joyce took over the fledgling shop at 65 Ottawa Street North. By 1967, after the pair had opened two more stores, they were full partners.

  When Horton died in 1974, Joyce bought out the Horton family's shares for $1 million. He became sole owner of a chain of 40 stores and set about growing it quickly in both geography and menu. The 500th store opened in 1991. The pace reshaped the Canadian market. Many independent donut shops and small chains were driven out of business, and Canada's number of donut shops per person passed that of every other country.

  The name itself kept shifting. The company was first incorporated as Tim Donut Limited. By the 1990s it had become The TDL Group Ltd., a change meant to move attention away from donuts as tastes broadened. The apostrophe in "Tim Horton's" disappeared after 1993, when some people read signs using it as a breach of Quebec's language sign laws. Dropping it let the company use one sign image across Canada.

  The two founding families were later joined directly. Ron Joyce Jr. married Horton's eldest daughter, Jeri-Lynn Horton-Joyce, and the couple jointly owned franchises in Cobourg, Ontario until they retired in 2023 after 37 years.

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• 3. Changing Owners

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  In 1992, Daniel P. Murphy, who owned every Tim Hortons and Wendy's restaurant on Prince Edward Island, built a single "combo store" for both brands in the town of Montague. He invited Joyce and Wendy's chairman Dave Thomas to the grand opening, and the two executives met there for the first time. Murphy's success with the idea led to the acquisition of the TDL Group by the American company Wendy's International, completed on the 8th of August 1995.

  The sale drew plenty of comment. A Toronto Star column that year mourned "the spectacle of another great Canadian icon...gone to Yankee burgerfat".

  Under Wendy's, the chain boomed. It opened twice as many Canadian outlets as McDonald's by 2005, and its system-wide sales had passed McDonald's Canadian operations back in 2002. In 2005 it took 22.6% of all fast-food revenue in Canada, and the TDL Group recorded $1.48 billion in sales.

  Investors Peter May and Nelson Peltz pressed Wendy's to cash in. In late 2005, Wendy's announced it would sell between 15% and 18% of the chain in an initial public offering. Shares began trading on the 24th of March 2006 and raised over $700 million on the first day. On the 24th of September, Wendy's gave its remaining 82% to its own shareholders, and Tim Hortons joined the S&P/TSX Composite Index and the S&P/TSX 60 the same day. By March 2006, the chain held 76% of the Canadian baked goods market and 62% of the coffee market, with Starbucks second at 7%.

  On the 29th of June 2009, the company announced a reorganization under a new publicly traded firm, incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act. The reason was mainly tax. It was completed on the 28th of September 2009.

  The biggest deal came in August 2014, when Burger King agreed to merge with Tim Hortons for US$11.4 billion. News of the proposal alone lifted Tim Hortons shares by 28 percent. The plan called for a new holding company, with the investment firm 3G Capital holding 51%, Burger King's shareholders 27% and Tim Hortons' shareholders 22%. The new company would be based in Oakville and listed on both the Toronto and New York stock exchanges. Burger King's CEO, Daniel Schwartz, would lead it, while Tim Hortons CEO Marc Caira became vice-chairman and a director. The result would be the third-largest fast-food company in the world.

  On the 28th of October 2014, the Competition Bureau of Canada ruled the deal "unlikely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition." Two days later, a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study warned of "overwhelmingly negative consequences for Canadians", pointing to 3G Capital's 30-year history of aggressive cost cutting. Caira argued the opposite, saying the deal would "enable us to move more quickly and efficiently to bring Tim Hortons iconic Canadian brand to a new global customer base."

  Minister of Industry James Moore approved the merger on the 4th of December 2014, with conditions. The two chains had to keep separate operations and not combine locations. They had to maintain "significant employment levels" at the Oakville headquarters, and Canadians had to make up at least half of the Tim Hortons board. Shareholders approved the deal on the 9th of December, and Restaurant Brands International began trading on the 15th of December 2014. CBC News noted that how the government would enforce the conditions was unclear. Within months, the company announced it would close its U.S. headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, which had 127 employees in March 2015.

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• 4. Across Borders

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  In 1981, Tim Hortons opened its first American restaurants in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach, Florida. Both proved unsuccessful and closed. The chain tried again in 1984 with a store in Tonawanda, New York. Its early American presence grew naturally out of border areas, such as Maine and the Buffalo region, where Horton had played for the Buffalo Sabres from 1972 to 1974.

  Starting in the mid-1990s, the chain grew in the United States by taking over sites from rivals. In 1996 and 1997, Wendy's International bought 37 former Rax locations in Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. Thirty became Tim Hortons, and the rest became Wendy's franchises. Thirty-five closed Hardee's stores in the Detroit area were also purchased. By 2004, the chain had absorbed 42 Bess Eaton coffee and donut restaurants in southern New England.

  On the 13th of July 2009, Tim Hortons opened in New York City, taking over former Dunkin' Donuts sites run by the Riese Organization. One sits in Madison Square Garden, where Horton played for the New York Rangers from 1969 to 1971. Not every market worked. In November 2010 the company closed 36 stores in the northeastern United States, mostly around Providence, Rhode Island, and Hartford, Connecticut. They earned less than half the average company per-store sales, and competition from Dunkin' Donuts and Au Bon Pain was heavy.

  Pittsburgh was the last of the four NHL cities where Horton played to get a store. It is also where he met his future wife, Lori. Kiosks opened there in 2010 at the arena now called PPG Paints Arena, helped along by Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby's long sponsorship deal with the chain. Full-service restaurants followed in July 2012. More recently, the chain opened its first location in Austin, Texas, on the 22nd of December 2024.

  In March 2006, the TDL Group committed to open an outlet on the Canadian Forces base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after a request from General Rick Hillier. It opened on the 1st of July 2006 in a 40 ft trailer with 41 staff. The Canadian government subsidized it at roughly CAD$4-5 million per year. When it closed on the 29th of November 2011, it had served four million cups of coffee and three million donuts. In 2010, the company opened three kiosks at NorthMart stores in Iqaluit, Nunavut, which put it in every province and territory. Senior vice-president Nick Javor put it this way: "If we can be in Kandahar, why can't we be in Iqaluit?"

  Overseas growth came in waves. Through a franchise partnership with Dubai-based Apparel Group, the first Gulf store opened in September 2011, and by December 2013 there were nineteen in the United Arab Emirates. In the United Kingdom, the first store opened in Glasgow on the 2nd of June 2017. In Madrid, two stores opened in December 2017, with Spanish drinks added to the menu.

  Asia followed. The first Southeast Asian branch opened on the 28th of February 2017 at Uptown Mall in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, in the Philippines, with Miss Universe Canada 2016, Siera Bearchell, at the ribbon cutting. In July 2018, the company announced it would open 1,500 stores in China. The first opened on the 26th of February 2019 in Huangpu District, Shanghai, and by the 31st of December 2024 China had 1,022 stores in 82 cities. The first two Indian locations opened on the 11th of August 2022, in New Delhi and Gurugram. In Singapore, a store opened at VivoCity on the 17th of November 2023, followed in August 2024 by a "Tim's Signatures" shop selling single-origin and filter coffee. The first Caribbean location opened in Prospect, Grand Cayman, on the 12th of October 2024.

  One oddity is in El Pas de la Casa, Andorra. Andorra is a sovereign country, yet its Tim Hortons is listed on the Spanish company website.

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• 5. Parbaked Promise

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  The first Tim Hortons stores offered just two products, coffee and donuts. A 2009 report found that 60% of sales happened in the morning, and more than half of those were coffee. The coffee is a blend of 100% arabica beans. The "original blend", a medium and balanced roast, is the most popular served coffee in Canada. The chain's "always fresh" policy has coffee served within 20 minutes of brewing, and a dark roast joined the lineup on the 15th of August 2014.

  The food menu widened steadily. Donut holes are sold as Timbits, and the dutchie is a Canadian donut that the chain popularized. The dutchie Timbit was discontinued in February 2014 because of low popularity. The chain sells one out of every two bagels in the Canadian food service industry. A breakfast sandwich arrived in autumn 2006, and the Bagel B.E.L.T. and hash browns came in December 2007.

  Some experiments failed. Poutine, widely seen as Canada's signature dish, was never a regular item at Tim Hortons. A limited-time version in June 2018 used seasoned potato wedges and drew mixed responses on social media. Hamburgers arrived in Canada in 2017, including a Beyond Meat version. Sales were poor and they were removed in 2019. A flatbread pizza line launched on the 17th of April 2024 in four flavours, and a fifth, Spicy Rosé, was added that October.

  The deepest dispute concerned how the donuts are made. They used to be baked overnight for the morning rush. Now they are parbaked, meaning partly cooked and frozen, and delivered to every restaurant in Canada from Brantford, Ontario. Each store finishes them during the day. On the 19th of September 2003, David Swick reported in the Halifax Daily News that Atlantic Canada outlets would no longer serve fresh donuts. Some customers felt this contradicted the "always fresh" slogan.

  In 2008, two franchisees began a class-action lawsuit over the switch. They said it tripled the fixed cost of making a donut from 6 cents to 18 cents and forced purchases of new freezers and microwaves. They said they had been told each donut would cost 11 or 12 cents, and each Timbit 4.6 cents. Franchisees were required to buy from the Brantford baker, owned by IAWS Group PLC. The case was dismissed in February 2012.

  In 2009, a New York Times article contrasted the "flash frozen" Tim Hortons method with the made-from-scratch approach at Krispy Kreme and some Dunkin' Donuts shops. The Times also noticed that the dutchie seemed scarce at the new New York City stores.

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• 6. Roll Up the Rim

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  In 1985, Roger Wilson of the Lily Cup company approached Tim Hortons with a cup that could carry a printed message under its rim. It cost no more than the existing cup. Tim Hortons saw a way to lift coffee sales in the normally weak spring period. The first Roll Up the Rim to Win campaign ran in 1986, and its biggest prize was a snack box of Timbits.

  By 2007, over 31 million prizes were handed out each year, including cars, televisions and store products. Each distribution region had its own odds, and in 2008 over 88% of major prizes were redeemed. The contest grew popular enough that Paul Kind invented the Rimroller, a device for rolling up the rim mechanically, which appeared on Dragons' Den.

  In March 2006, two families in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, fought over a Toyota RAV4 prize. Two daughters had found a winning cup in a garbage bin at an elementary school. The younger girl could not roll up the rim and asked an older girl for help. Once the win was revealed, the older girl's family said they deserved the prize.

  Tim Hortons first said it would not step in. Then Quebec lawyer Claude Archambault asked for a DNA test on the cup, claiming that his unnamed client had thrown it out. On the 19th of April 2006, the company awarded the prize to the younger girl who found the cup.

  The contest also raised concerns about litter. A special edition ran in July 2017 for Canada's sesquicentennial, with a $10,000 "Ultimate Canadian Vacation" among the prizes. In 2018 came "Scroll Up the Rim" on the mobile app. On the 7th of March 2020, the chain cancelled physical cups because of the COVID-19 pandemic and moved the promotion entirely to the app. It was renamed "Roll Up to Win" and ran that way through 2024. In February 2025, physical cups returned alongside digital entries for a limited time.

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• 7. Canadian Icon

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  Canadian author Pierre Berton once wrote that "In so many ways the story of Tim Hortons is the essential Canadian story." He called it a story "of success and tragedy, of big dreams and small towns, of old-fashioned values and tough-fisted business, of hard work and of hockey." Commentator Rex Murphy offered a different explanation for how the chain "transmuted into a hallowed piece of Canadiana". He suggested it might be consumers' "reverse-preference" against the sudden arrival of Starbucks in the 1990s.

  Not everyone cheered. In July 2006, Rudyard Griffiths of The Dominion Institute wrote in the Toronto Star that the chain's rise to icon status was a "worrying sign" for Canadian nationalism. "Surely Canada can come up with a better moniker than the Timbit Nation," he wrote.

  The icon status crossed the border through television. In the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother, Canadian actress Cobie Smulders, playing Robin, stood in a Tim Hortons near the Hockey Hall of Fame and called it the "most Canadian place in the universe". The chain adopted the line as an unofficial slogan. The film Wayne's World had Stan Mikita's Donuts, a parody of the chain. Tim Hortons also appeared in the series Homeland and The Last Ship.

  The brand shows up in sports and pop culture too. It was title sponsor of the Brier, the Canadian men's curling championship, from 2005 to 2023. In 2014, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats began playing at Tim Hortons Field. In November 2021, a promotion with singer Justin Bieber produced limited edition "Tim Biebs" Timbits. For the 60th anniversary in 2024, a musical called The Last Timbit played at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres in Toronto.

  The Tim Horton Children's Foundation, founded by Ron Joyce, sends thousands of underprivileged children to summer camps. Its main fundraiser is Camp Day, held on the Wednesday of the first full week in June, when coffee proceeds at most locations go to the foundation. For this work, Joyce received the Gary Wright Humanitarian Award in 1991. He was presented with his appointment to the Order of Canada in Ottawa on the 21st of October 1992. A Smile Cookie collaboration with DJ Deadmau5 raised $7.8 million.

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• 8. Under Scrutiny

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  In September 2006, Tim Hortons stirred controversy by telling employees not to wear red during the Red Fridays campaign, which military families had started to support Canadian troops. Within hours, it partly backed down and let Ontario staff wear red ribbons or pins. In 2009, the company dropped sponsorship of a Marriage and Family Day event after learning that its host, the National Organization for Marriage, campaigned against gay marriage. It cited a policy against sponsoring religious, political or lobby groups.

  In June 2015, the chain pulled an Enbridge advertising campaign from its in-store "Tims TV" after a petition by the group SumOfUs. Alberta's Wildrose Party leader, Brian Jean, then led a boycott, seeing the decision as an attack on Alberta's oil industry.

  The sharpest fight came in January 2018, when Ontario's minimum wage rose from $11.60 to $14.00 an hour. Restaurant Brands International would not reduce supply costs or allow franchisees to raise menu prices, unlike McDonald's, Cara Foods and Starbucks. Franchisees, who employed an average of 35 staff, responded by cutting benefits such as paid breaks and health plan contributions. About 50 demonstrations followed, 38 of them in Ontario. The Great White North Franchisee Association, formed in 2017, filed class-action lawsuits against the parent company.

  The damage was measurable. Tim Hortons usually placed in the top 10 of the Leger poll of Canadian brands, but it fell from 4th place in 2017 to 50th in 2018. In May 2018, the Reputation Institute reported a fall from 13th to 67th in its ranking of Canada's most reputable companies, though the brand was still considered to have a strong reputation.

  Plastic became another flashpoint. In 2019, Tim Hortons accounted for about 11% of the branded plastic waste that Greenpeace Canada collected from rivers and beaches. A Change.org petition for a fully recyclable and compostable cup gained over 171,000 signatures, and the company had not responded by February 2019. In early 2020, it gave away reusable cups in its Roll Up the Rim promotion, an effort critics called greenwashing. In March 2020, it was also criticized for not offering sick-leave concessions during the pandemic.

  On the 1st of June 2022, the federal privacy commissioner, working with officials in Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, announced that the chain's app had violated privacy laws. It had gathered users' location data hundreds of times a day, even when the app was not in use. As restitution, Tim Hortons offered eligible app users a free coffee and a baked good.

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