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Tim Hortons is now selling pizza

FriskyCanuck

FriskyCanuck

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,083
Toronto, Canada
www.thestar.com

Tim Hortons launches pizza nationally to ‘stretch the brand’ to afternoon, night

The chain says cheese, pepperoni, "bacon everything" and chicken Parmesan flatbread pizzas will appear on its menu Wednesday.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

"We are really strong in the morning ... but we saw that opportunity existed in the afternoon," said Tims' chief marketing officer Hope Bagozzi, sitting in the chain's Toronto test kitchen on a recent evening.

"With single-digit market share for a player of our size, that's really not tapping into the potential in the afternoon."

Tim Hortons is hoping to turn that around when it follows up a two-year flatbread pizza pilot with the national launch of cheese, pepperoni, "bacon everything" and chicken Parmesan varieties Wednesday, a month before its sixtieth anniversary.
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Executives always saw flatbread pizza as an eventual menu item but took a long-term approach, launching wraps and bowls first.

When the bowls and wraps attracted customers during weekday lunches, Tims decided it was ready to court more afternoon and dinner diners with flatbread pizza, which it also sees as weekend- and family-friendly.

It tested potential flatbread pizzas for two years — one of its longest pilot periods in recent history — in markets like Winnipeg, Calgary and Mississauga, Ont., and learned a lot.
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There were also logistical complications. Tims staff assemble sandwiches but don't knead dough, and with space constantly at a premium in the quick-serve industry, adding a new station beyond the counter can be costly.

Tims will solve for these challenges by shipping flatbread bases to stores and equipping its sandwich stations with squeeze bottles of sauces and containers of shredded cheese and other toppings so they can be made to order.

And then there's convincing people to open their wallets. After all, Canadians aren't starved for choices when it comes to pizza, lunch or dinner.
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Remember when Tim Hortons was a coffee and donut place? They should've just gone back to basics but now they're selling every mediocre food stuffs they can. And if past experience taught me anything, it'll be frozen pizza.
 
Dice

Dice

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,183
Canada
Semi-related (this is gross and I will not abide Tim Hortons pizza).

I was thinking about McDOnalds Pizza and missing that weird magical moment they existed. It was good by High School cafeteria-type standards.
rg9wdrr1t0431.jpg
 
AuthenticM

AuthenticM

Son Altesse Sérénissime
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
31,025
mcdonalds canada sold pizza back in the 90s and they stopped because no one bought them, and they are very much an afternoon and night restaurant.
 
ScoutDave

ScoutDave

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,451
Im old enough to remember when they (Timmies) had bakerys inside every store baking the donuts, pastries and cakes and pies fresh. I wish they still were like that. All this luncheon/bistro type shit can fuck off as far as im concerned.
 
LakeEarth

LakeEarth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,228
Ontario
AuthenticM said:
mcdonalds canada sold pizza back in the 90s and they stopped because no one bought them, and they are very much an afternoon and night restaurant.
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I don't know if it's true, but I once heard that McDonald's Pizza was the highest selling pizza in the world. Not because people liked it or brought it or anything, but because of sheer scale. They just had way more stores than other chains, plus the global reach.
 
RaySpencer

RaySpencer

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,932
I'll definitely try it, but most of their new things aren't great. And they slowly make the classics like soup and sandwiches worse and worse.
 
balohna

balohna

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,333
AuthenticM said:
mcdonalds canada sold pizza back in the 90s and they stopped because no one bought them, and they are very much an afternoon and night restaurant.
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I remember getting "parked" every time and the cheese was always burnt.

Pizza Pizza is probably the sweet spot for "this kinda sucks, but in an endearing way and at least it's cheap" and I doubt Tim's will beat that.
 
Vinx

Vinx

Member
Sep 9, 2019
1,478
Those are just pizzas.

Little disappointed.

Was expecting pizza donuts (like a pizza bagel) or pizza with donuts on it.
 
ghostmind

ghostmind

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,472
They've been selling pizzas in Western Canada for months now.

The pepperoni pizza is "ok" but they take a long-ass time to make and disrupt the flow. I would never order one during a busy time of the day.
 
ItIsOkBro

ItIsOkBro

Happy New Year!!
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
9,600
stretch the brand? Tim Hortons needs to contract the brand, timbits and ice caps only
 
onpoint

onpoint

Neon Deity Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
15,434
716
Dice said:
Semi-related (this is gross and I will not abide Tim Hortons pizza).

I was thinking about McDOnalds Pizza and missing that weird magical moment they existed. It was good by High School cafeteria-type standards.
rg9wdrr1t0431.jpg
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I absolutely got this during a class trip to a Blue Jays game from Buffalo in like 1993 and was absolutely opinionless about it. What a weird time.
 
Scottoest

Scottoest

Member
Feb 4, 2020
11,561
As a Canadian, I find myself hating Tim Hortons more and more every year. They keep trying to compete with everything everyone else is doing, rather than focusing on what made them popular in the first place. In fact those core things have only gotten worse and worse. You were a salt of the earth coffee and donut shop for years that had an ugly but homely brown interior, awesome fresh-made donuts, and passable coffee.
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,995
I guess I might as well give it a try when I visit Toronto later this year. Though I've never been very impressed with Tim Hortons any of the previous times I've tried them.
 
Kraid

Kraid

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,498
Cuck Zone
That blackberry lime sparkler drink whips ass, but almost all the other new things they've added have been meh.
 
Lilification

Lilification

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Mar 28, 2024
220
If this is the kind of crap they're putting out still, I can't say I'm upset they closed all of their locations in my state a few years back. Their coffee was already bottom of the barrel and the donuts started to taste like garbage too.
 
Becks'

Becks'

Member
Dec 7, 2017
7,832
Canada
Their filtered coffee is dirtwater and the 20 minute always fresh rule is a straight up lie. They don't brew new coffee until it runs out so it becomes stale.

The espresso drinks are really good for the price IMO. Even James Hoffmann ranked it as a top pick for NA coffee when he prepared it.
 
rsfour

rsfour

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,101
McDonald's pizza was pretty good.

Timmys on the other hand, they haven't done anything good in a long fucking time.
 

StevieP

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,360
I had this last year when they were testing it in northern Ontario. It's what you expect from Tim Hortons (aka it's edible but it's not good)
 
bremon

bremon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,248
Tim's can't even deliver a good coffee experience, how the fuck are they going to compete in the pizza market? I don't even know how many times they've fucked with their coffee over the years but I know their dark roast was decent at one point and was some battery acid garbage the last time I had it, and their donuts haven't been good in years.

StevieP said:
I had this last year when they were testing it in northern Ontario. It's what you expect from Tim Hortons (aka it's edible but it's not good)
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Exactly what I expected. I remember 15 years ago when they were bragging that their bread for their sandwiches (when they only really did coffee, donuts, soups and sandwiches) was finally edible instead of a mixture of crusty drywall compound and cardboard… and that was before one or two corporate takeovers by enormous LLCs looking to "extract more value".
 
Divvy

Divvy

Teyvat Traveler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,275
Dice said:
I get the Honey Cruller...at least it's more-or-less guaranteed to be moist and soft. 👍
honey-cruller-donut.jpg


The coffee tastes like ash though.
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Yeah that's what I get too. It's the only one I like. Well maybe the plain sour cream but I'm not sure if that's still there.

I still remember when they used to have actual good food. Bring back the chicken stew and bread bowls!
 
thecowboypoet

thecowboypoet

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
2,050
This ain't it Tim Hortons. Here's my 5 point plan to save Tim Hortons:

1) Change the coffee back to whatever it was before. I don't drink coffee but all the coffee drinkers I do know say the coffee use to be better.
2) Bring back the Bieber timbits. I don't like the guy, never heard a song of his that didn't suck but holy shit, those timbits slapped.
3) Introduce dips for timbits. You know how much the plain timbits fucking suck? They're always the last one left in the box. What if you could dip it in some vanilla? Or chocolate? Or some sort of strawberry cream? This is such a good idea I hesitate to even post it online.
4) Turn the birthday cake timbit (the GOAT) into a full donut. Holy fuck why hasn't this happened already?!
And... if you really must branch out to pastries+coffee...
5) Ice cream. You're already half way there with ice caps, donut toppings, etc.
 
krae_man

krae_man

Master of Balan Wonderworld
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,740
Tim Hortons has been trying to change the menu to try and attract more lunch and dinner crowd for a decade at this point.

The biggest roadblock is probably a reluctance to add fountain drinks TBH.

I want to say they have tried flat breads before. We get test markets here sometimes. I remember Tim Hortons with Cold Stone Creamerys in them.
 
TheDestructiveSquirrel

TheDestructiveSquirrel

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,724
I'm glad I live in an area where there are several pizza places close to most Tim Horton's locations so if I wanted pizza I wouldn't end up at frickin' Timmies lol
 
TheDestructiveSquirrel

TheDestructiveSquirrel

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,724
thecowboypoet said:
This ain't it Tim Hortons. Here's my 5 point plan to save Tim Hortons:

1) Change the coffee back to whatever it was before. I don't drink coffee but all the coffee drinkers I do know say the coffee use to be better.
2) Bring back the Bieber timbits. I don't like the guy, never heard a song of his that didn't suck but holy shit, those timbits slapped.
3) Introduce dips for timbits. You know how much the plain timbits fucking suck? They're always the last one left in the box. What if you could dip it in some vanilla? Or chocolate? Or some sort of strawberry cream? This is such a good idea I hesitate to even post it online.
4) Turn the birthday cake timbit (the GOAT) into a full donut. Holy fuck why hasn't this happened already?!
And... if you really must branch out to pastries+coffee...
5) Ice cream. You're already half way there with ice caps, donut toppings, etc.
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You don't remember when some Tim Horton's also had Coldstone Creamery? That was so good but I guess it didn't make enough money
 
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