Toujours Frais

I've noticed that certain companies here in Canada are pretty ubiquitous. Every country has them, of course. In the U.S., however, these companies are pretty much found everywhere on Earth: Nike, Coca-Cola, Microsoft. While we have many U.S. fast food chains here, Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonald's, really the 900-pound gorilla of Canadian fast food is the legendary coffee and donuts emporium, Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons (originally known as "Tim Horton" with no possessive "s") is Canada's largest fast food chain, with more than double the Canadian locations of McDonald's. As a matter of fact, there are two TH within walking distance of my home and two more within walking distance of my office. The chain was founded in 1963 by Tim Horton (naturally) who played in the National Hockey League (naturally) from 1949 until his death in a car accident in 1974. Soon after Horton opened the store, he met Ron Joyce, a former Hamilton police constable. In 1965, Joyce's entrepreneurial spirit had come to the fore and he took over the fledgling Tim Horton Donut Shop on Ottawa Street in Hamilton. Upon Horton's death, Joyce bought out the Horton family and took over as sole owner of the existing chain of the forty stores. Currently, the parent company of TH is the Wendy's Corporation and you'll often see the two restaurants occupying the same space in a building. Recently TH opened up some U.S. stores, mostly on the East coast and in Northern New York. I always see the one near the Maine Mall every time that I visit my parents back home. Also, at the request of Canadian servicemen and women, in March 2006 Tim Hortons announced intentions to open a shop at the Canadian forces base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Every spring is TH's big Roll Up The Rim to Win contest. Customers determine if they have won prizes by unrolling the rim on their paper cup when they have finished their drink, revealing their luck underneath. There was big news recently as a little girl in the Montreal area fished a cup out of the garbage and asked another girl to help her lift up the rim. As it turns out, the prize for that cup was a $32,000 Toyota RAV4 SUV. Each family thought that they deserved the car, and Tim Hortons originally stated that they would not intervene in the dispute. However, this past week Tim Hortons announced that they had decided to award the prize to the parents of the girl who had initially discovered the cup. Despite Tim Hortons' prominence, I really don't go very often, as I don't drink coffee and rarely have donuts, but I do enjoy a Saturday morning low-fat muffin or some Timbits (donut holes). A CANADIAN FACT! Tim Hortons accounted for 22.6% of all fast food industry revenues in Canada in 2005 and they commands 76% of the Canadian market for coffee and baked goods. They hold 62% of the Canadian coffee market with Starbucks at number two with a pathetic 7%.