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The Good: Some delicious coffees, Tasty limited time flavors
The Bad: Pricing inconsistencies, Dining-In experience, Little exciting to their breakfast menu.
The Basics:Without my paying attention, it appears that Tim Hortons has become my favorite place to buy coffee when I am on the go!
The other day, when someone asked me what my favorite place to get coffee was, I had to think. In fact, I was so stymied by the question that it wasn’t until they started listing off names of coffee places that I actually was able to answer. The truth is, I have never had a bad experience with Caribou Coffee (reviewed here!), but there are none within at least a four hundred mile radius of me. And after my wife’s exceptionally negative work experience at Dunkin Donuts (reviewed here!) – much of which involved her not being paid for her work! – I have been pretty studiously avoiding the Dunkin’ Donuts branches locally. But, whenever I am groggy in the morning and I’m not getting gas, I find myself getting coffee at Tim Hortons these days!
Prior to rather abruptly discovering myself going to Tim Hortons (apparently unconsciously), I had avoided the chain, though I had reviewed their Fine Grind Coffee (that’s here!). My initial avoidance of Tim Hortons came not from anything the chain had done; the first time I went into one, I looked at their donuts and they looked remarkably like the small, under-flavored Krispy Kreme donuts that I, frankly, loathe. When I realized that I went to Tim Hortons pretty regularly and that I would be reviewing the chain, I tried some of the donuts and the truth is, they are quite a bit better than Krispy Kreme!
Location
Tim Hortons is a chain of coffee shops that has hundreds of locations spread out in the northern United States and throughout Canada. Tim Hortons is a franchise-operated coffee shop that specializes in coffees and an ever-increasing selection of baked goods like muffins, donuts, bagels and breakfast sandwiches. Tim Hortons has a red and white logo that pretty much just highlights the chain’s name.
The average Tim Hortons shop that I've experienced opens into a discrete standing area where patrons are filed up to a counter where they place their order, pay and are ushered toward a nearby area to pick up drinks (especially if it is busy). Most locations have a sitting area with five or ten tables and/or booths that customers may sit at to eat. Cleanliness of these facilities seems consistently decent. The Tim Hortons shops I have visited have each been very clean.
Waitstaff
Like most fast food restaurants, Tim Hortons does not so much have waitstaff as it has cashier/cooks who take orders, money and assemble orders. The workers at each branch I went to seemed to know what they were doing. They were usually perky twentysomethings and they knew their drinks well, though at two of the Tim Hortons I have been to in cities (as opposed to suburbs or on the road), the staff has been less patient and/or appeared more tired.
Even so, the service at most of the Tim Hortons I have been to has been good, at the very least.
Food
Tim Hortons has surprisingly stable menu that has been growing more than it has been fluctuating. In other words, Tim Hortons’ menu seems to keep having items added to it, as opposed to having grand shifts in what is available. This morning, for example, I tried the new Caramel Chocolate Brownie Ice Capp Supreme. The beverage itself is a frozen coffee beverage that has a respectable amount of chocolate flavoring in it that makes it very distinct. It is topped with a thick chocolate whipped cream (which is more like an icing or frosting than a blasé whipped cream!) that is then covered in crumbled brownie pieces. This is a brand new beverage and it was actually the source of one of my few disappointments at Tim Hortons. First, it is prominently advertised as a $2.29 beverage for a small. Figuring the economics worked in my favor to get the large, I was shocked when my total was $3.99, whatwith the difference between the large and small being about half again the size of the small, not double. So I was a little sore about the expense when usually Tim Hortons is very affordable and good. While the drink did taste good, as I neared the bottom, I discovered this drink appears to be flavoring and ice, as I sucked out the liquid and was left with an inordinate amount of shaved ice at the bottom of my cup. What was also irksome was that as the ice melted at the bottom, it severely diluted the beverage.
So, I tend to stick with what I know. Usually, I purchase an extra large Café Mocha with extra mint flavoring. This is a steaming cup of coffee with a rich chocolate flavor and no bitterness to it. Despite ordering this $2.70 cup of coffee pretty consistently for the past several months, none of the locations near me ever give it enough mint to actually impress me that they have added any at all. That said, the Café Mocha is a refreshing, warming drink that heats me from the inside out.
What Tim Hortons does exceptionally well on the flavoring front is when one simply adds flavor to their regular coffee. When they add pumpkin spice or mint flavoring to their plain coffee, the result is a flavorful pick-me-up that starts my morning off delightfully.
The bagels at Tim Hortons are appropriately tough on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. My recent experience with Tim Hortons bagels was that they are ideally served fresh, but that their flavor selection is severely limited compared to their competitors.
I’ve made a point of trying some of Tim Hortons’ breakfast products recently as well. Because they were inexpensive and I enjoy breakfast burritos, it seemed pretty natural that I would try the Breakfast Wrap. The Breakfast Wrap is scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese (sauce), and ham wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla. The tortilla was appropriately supple, but the cheese was exceptionally weak and in both of the Breakfast Wraps I had at the same location over the course of the past week, the ham was cold. This made for an unfortunately unpleasant breakfast that did not invigorate me.
Somewhat better was the hot breakfast sandwich. I had the homestyle biscuit, two strips of bacon, the seasoned egg patty and cheese. The cheese on this sandwich is American and was disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, weak, but the rest of the sandwich was hot all the way through and surprisingly flavorful.
With the hot breakfast sandwich, I had the homestyle hash brown. At Tim Hortons, they are a single patty-style potato cake and they are virtually unsalted, but otherwise quite tasty. The hash browns I have had at Tim Hortons have always been crispy, if not hot.
As for the donuts, my recent health kick has precluded me from sampling the full array of donuts, but the one that captured my attention and tastebuds is the Canadian Maple donut. Like most maple donuts, this has a glaze on top that is a creamy tan color and flavored like maple sugar candy. What makes the Canadian Maple donut different is that it is also filled with a maple custard that is absolutely delicious!
Overall
Tim Hortons is a low-price coffee shop that has decent business practices and good food, if oddly baffling prices and exceptionally variable food quality. Even so, it is hard to deny that it has become a place I stop frequently on my way to work in order to prepare myself for the day ahead!
For other restaurants, be sure to check out my reviews of:
America
Pizza Hut
Europa Cafe
6.5/10
For other restaurant reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing of all my restaurant reviews!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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