Tim Hortons

My husband and I joke that the speaker you give your order to at the Tim Horton's drive through is really nothing more than a talking suggestion box. You place your order and then once you've moved ahead to the front of the line, they ask you again what you ordered. They don't seem to be very organized and it could be that their machines are often down (today the hot cider machine was down so I couldn't have my morning apple fix) or that the majority of the workers there are quite young and inexperienced, but either way, they can't seem to get an order right too often. I am often asked to pull ahead to a parking place where they will bring my order out to me (this is usually when the speaker is broken) and which point a uniformed employee comes out, bags in hand, walking from car to car trying to figure out to whom they belong. Sadly, this happens quite often. So, why do I keep going back? Convenience! They're right down the street and for $3 I can get my coffee or cider and a bagel (not the way I want it but I can have a bagel however THEY choose to make it!) and I'm off with my breakfast in a reasonably short amount of time. At times their lack of concern over getting my order correct does get to me and I threaten that I'll never go back but I can't seem to hold to my threat when I my stomach is growling and I'm running around trying to get my errands done. I guess something does have to be said for cheep convenience! more

We're going out of town for Labor Day Weekend and what better way to start off the trip than with a bagel and a coffee to make the drive that much better! My husband and I went through the drive through at Tim Horton's, quite a long line at 9am! Apparently, we weren't the only ones with this same idea of a bagel. They were pretty busy but didn't seem to be short staffed. They did seem a bit scattered-brained and stressed at the drive-thru. They asked us to repeat parts of our order at least 3 times and still got parts of it wrong, giving us one milk instead of two for the kids, forgetting to put the cream cheese on one of the bagels and not including the doughnut at all. We stayed until they got it right and they fixed everything very quickly so we were satisfied when we drove away, for the most part. We did get everything we ordered but my bagel I had ordered had cream cheese on only half of it, a minor pet peeve of mine. I was able spread some of it to the other side but not very well and I ended up throwing away most of it. It was messy and cream cheese was all over the wrapper on both sides. The coffee was delicious as always, though, and the doughnut holes my daughter had asked for all disappeared very quickly! Will we go back? Sure! Was it a good visit? I wouldn't call it that. In fact, many of our visits are very much the same as this one. We have even gone so far as to refer to the little speaker where you place your order as "The Suggestion Box," as our orders usually need to be repeated once we've moved up to the pick up window. It doesn't even compare to Dunkin Doughnuts, but they don't have a drive thru and convenience counts for a lot these days! more