Some of my American friends don't know the Canadian phenomenon that is Tim Hortons.
You might have to take a trip to Canada to experience it and understand.
As of September 2009, there were 2971 Tim Hortons coffee shops in Canada.
(There are about 1400 Mcdonald's Restaurants in Canada, so there are more than two of Tim's places for every one of Ronald's places.)
Tim Hortons controls 76% of Canada's market for baked goods (based on number of customers served) and 62% of the Canadian coffee market (compared to Starbucks, with 7%).
Tim Horton was an all-star defenseman in the NHL for 25 years. He opened his first doughnut shop in 1964, and there were 40 of them when he died ten years later in a sports car accident. Now there are more than 3527 coffee shops in the USA and Canada (plus one in Kandahar, Afghanistan for Canadian troops stationed there. My friend Jim ate there several months ago).
These eateries serve an important social purpose in Canada's small, remote towns. They are places to meet, to visit, to socialize. Kind of like non-alcoholic pubs. I know of one small town of less than 5000 people that has three Tim Hortons, as I recall :)
At Tims, a "double-double" is a coffee with two creams and two sugars.
"Roll Up the Rim to Win" is an annual marketing campaign that gives away over 31 million prizes each year -- and there are only 34 million Canadians!
The Tim Horton Children's Foundation sponsors thousands of underprivileged kids and gives them a wonderful summer camp experience (with plenty of doughnuts, I'm guessing!).
A survey has shown that Canadians eat more doughnuts per capita than any other nation on earth. So which came first -- Tim Hortons or that lamentable statistic?
Wikipedia has a good article on the doughnut shops here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hortons
And a good article on the hockey player here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Horton
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