2013/12/10: Tim Hortons

Tim Horton was a Canadian hockey player, who also played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He died in an automobile crash in 1974 (as more than 2,000 Canadians and about 3,500 Germans do every year). But his name is immortal, as he was the co-founder of the Tim Hortons Doughnut Shops. When Horton died in 1974, there existed 40 shops. Today, there are over 3,000 locations in Canada (about 500 of them in Toronto), more than 500 shops in the United States and there are also shops in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Abu Dhabi. Until 2011, there even existed a Tim Hortons shop in Afghanistan, serving the Canadian soldiers with coffee and doughnuts.

No, you can’t do an exchange semester in Canada without regularly going to Tim Hortons. It is cheap and good. And it offers a variety of drinks and snacks. And it always has great offers (at the moment Gingerbread Latte and Candy Cane Hot Chocolate). No wonder that so many Canadians enjoy their breakfast and coffee break at Tim Hortons.

The first Tim Hortons Doughnut Shop opened at Ottawa Road in Hamilton in 1964. Yes, I’ve been there yesterday (the GO train route to Hamilton was the last one I didn’t take yet…). This is how it looks like:



Tim Hortons is outright Canadian: Hockey; friendly; fast food; and, most important: not American! Look at this picture, taken at the entrance of a library, and you understand the cultural meaning of Tim Hortons in Canada:



There are three Tim Hortons shops and exactly 39 other fast food facilities/cafés (Pizza Pizza, Wendy’s, Second Cup, Starbucks, Jimmy the Greek, etc.) at our campus, but no canteens offering cheap, at least partly healthy food, as you are used to from German universities. Some time ago every student got an e-mail concerning the food service on campus. It said: “York University has partnered with Porter Khouw Consulting, a university food service consultant, to assist in examining the possibilities for enhancing the quality of York University’s food services. […] You can provide your feedback about campus food services and your overall residence dining experience by participating in a brief focus group session”. Improving the food quality? Great! Not only fast food, but more healthy food? More organic food? Better food quality? Apparently not: concerning the focus group sessions, the e-mail ended with: “Pizza and soft drinks will be served.”