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Have it your Eh?
Nov. 23rd, 2015 09:22 pmSomething strange is happening in the seemingly wonderful world of Canadian breakfast.
One of the sheer joys of moving here, lo those almost 35 years ago, was the cross-border copacetic coffee then known to all of Canada but little of this country beyond the Niagara Frontier. Tim Horton was a legendary hockey player for both the Maple Leafs and the early Sabres, and his chain of donut shops became even more legendary after his off-ice death in a car accident following a Sabres game in the early 70s.
Yet it took until this century for the aroma and the cachet to reach even to Rochester. Wendy's had toyed with merging the chains in the 90s, but the synergy failed to, aw, Take Off! , and the Timmy's were back on their own by the mid-oughts....
until aboot a year ago. That's when another Burgermeister, this time Burger King, acquired the chain in a deal widely seen as a tax dodge for the acquiring Southern North Americans. They were subject to antitrust rules in their own country set down by the then Minister of Industry James Moore:
The two companies agreed to Moore's conditions, requiring that the Burger King and Tim Hortons chains retain separate operations and not combine locations, maintain "significant employment levels" at the Oakville headquarters, and ensure that Canadians make up at least 30% of Tim Hortons' board of directors.
None of those restrictions appear to extend over the border, though; Timmy's former US headquarters was shuttered by mid-May of this year, and now, the rest of the economies of scale appear to be happening, on the double-double.
----
Last week, a Central New York friend, formerly from here, passed on the news: Tim Hortons had suddenly and inexplicably shuttered its entire presence from west of Syracuse to out toward Utica. Many of them were franchised locations, meeting their sales goals, who'd been given no notice of the urgent need to close that day until ordered to shut the doors and take down the signs that day. Among other things, this got the state's Attorney General on the case, for they'd been selling Timmy's gift cards right up to the time of closing, which were now useless anywhere within 50-plus miles in any direction. (There are still franchised locations on the Thruway, but even months ago I noticed they weren't accepting those cards.) Then, earlier today, I was shopping for a gift card for a departing coworker, and noticed that the red Timcards had disappeared from the Wegmans display, replaced by a sign saying they no longer sell them.
It seemed a strange departure. There's no dominant donut chain other than theirs anywhere upstate; Dunkies has made inroads, but have never truly challenged Tim's in this immediate area, and at most were close but not impossible competition in other Western/Central NY markets. Krispy Kreme tried entering here and in Rochester over a decade ago, with some initial success (they even took over a beloved Rochester-based artisan bread business called Montana Mills), but in time people were scared off by the no-carb demands of the Atkins diet, or got tired of their cracker cachet and their rampant misspelling of the word "donut," and those locations were longago shuttered (one, ironically, turned into a vitamin store). Some local shops, even small chains, hold their own against the Canadian juggernoot, but there's no real competition to justify a sudden shutdown of a big swath of its entire business....
unless you count competition from the merged chain itself.
----
It rather makes sense. Burger King has never been big on breakfast: yes, they developed the Croissanwich in the 80s, but it never gained the traction of the Egg or Bacon McAnything in either culture or sales. This is wild speculation on my part, but I fully expect to see the Central New York corridor turned into a test market for the TimInAKing concept- where existing, underutilized-in-the-morning BK locations get expanded with sides of their brother products.
Not to mention the advertising benefits that would come from putting a hockey mask on the Creepy King.
One of the sheer joys of moving here, lo those almost 35 years ago, was the cross-border copacetic coffee then known to all of Canada but little of this country beyond the Niagara Frontier. Tim Horton was a legendary hockey player for both the Maple Leafs and the early Sabres, and his chain of donut shops became even more legendary after his off-ice death in a car accident following a Sabres game in the early 70s.
Yet it took until this century for the aroma and the cachet to reach even to Rochester. Wendy's had toyed with merging the chains in the 90s, but the synergy failed to, aw, Take Off! , and the Timmy's were back on their own by the mid-oughts....
until aboot a year ago. That's when another Burgermeister, this time Burger King, acquired the chain in a deal widely seen as a tax dodge for the acquiring Southern North Americans. They were subject to antitrust rules in their own country set down by the then Minister of Industry James Moore:
The two companies agreed to Moore's conditions, requiring that the Burger King and Tim Hortons chains retain separate operations and not combine locations, maintain "significant employment levels" at the Oakville headquarters, and ensure that Canadians make up at least 30% of Tim Hortons' board of directors.
None of those restrictions appear to extend over the border, though; Timmy's former US headquarters was shuttered by mid-May of this year, and now, the rest of the economies of scale appear to be happening, on the double-double.
----
Last week, a Central New York friend, formerly from here, passed on the news: Tim Hortons had suddenly and inexplicably shuttered its entire presence from west of Syracuse to out toward Utica. Many of them were franchised locations, meeting their sales goals, who'd been given no notice of the urgent need to close that day until ordered to shut the doors and take down the signs that day. Among other things, this got the state's Attorney General on the case, for they'd been selling Timmy's gift cards right up to the time of closing, which were now useless anywhere within 50-plus miles in any direction. (There are still franchised locations on the Thruway, but even months ago I noticed they weren't accepting those cards.) Then, earlier today, I was shopping for a gift card for a departing coworker, and noticed that the red Timcards had disappeared from the Wegmans display, replaced by a sign saying they no longer sell them.
It seemed a strange departure. There's no dominant donut chain other than theirs anywhere upstate; Dunkies has made inroads, but have never truly challenged Tim's in this immediate area, and at most were close but not impossible competition in other Western/Central NY markets. Krispy Kreme tried entering here and in Rochester over a decade ago, with some initial success (they even took over a beloved Rochester-based artisan bread business called Montana Mills), but in time people were scared off by the no-carb demands of the Atkins diet, or got tired of their cracker cachet and their rampant misspelling of the word "donut," and those locations were longago shuttered (one, ironically, turned into a vitamin store). Some local shops, even small chains, hold their own against the Canadian juggernoot, but there's no real competition to justify a sudden shutdown of a big swath of its entire business....
unless you count competition from the merged chain itself.
----
It rather makes sense. Burger King has never been big on breakfast: yes, they developed the Croissanwich in the 80s, but it never gained the traction of the Egg or Bacon McAnything in either culture or sales. This is wild speculation on my part, but I fully expect to see the Central New York corridor turned into a test market for the TimInAKing concept- where existing, underutilized-in-the-morning BK locations get expanded with sides of their brother products.
Not to mention the advertising benefits that would come from putting a hockey mask on the Creepy King.