The term is 'enshittification' and it's practically the default business strategy for extracting cash from brand value.

Buy/make a good company by offering a quality service and then spend the next decade cutting costs until the product is terrible.

Most people won't notice the incremental changes. It's often likened to boiling a frog.

I worked there during the frozen donut transition. A few really cool stoner night bakers got let go from my store.

In Cobourg, Ontario, a Tim Hortons store got into the news because after the minimum wage was raised they cut their employees benefits.

The interesting part was that the store was owned by the son of one of the Tim Hortons founders and the daughter of the other founder, who had married. There was a bit of a backlash, to put it mildly.

I never cared for Tim Horton's coffee, so I didn't mind the change.

Hot take, but the donuts being frozen is not a bad thing. I work in a grocer and people never know that our bread products are not fresh until they "catch" us putting the frozen products on the shelf. We don't hide it, and nobody complains about the quality. In fact, they love it. If the donuts taste like shit, its because they were shit donuts, not because they were frozen. While seeing and knowing the donuts are being made fresh on site is a magical thing, you absolutely can retain 99% of the quality with frozen. Ideally, the savings would be passed on to the consumer though.

But pizza, sandwiches, and shit tasting coffee, I got nothing for that. It is meant to be a coffee shop at its core, so I don't know why the fuck they'd ruin the coffee so much. It's not like its hard either, you can make a machine do it for you. They're trying too hard to be like Starbucks. I understand trying to appeal to a new generation of Canadians, but they really missed the mark. If they wanted to seriously compete with Starbucks, they are completely half-assing it.

Tim Hortons have been pooping (autoassume changed that from popping, but I'm fucking leaving it!) up here in the UK, not loads of locations, and weirdly not in some of the places you'd expect. First one was in Glasgow, I believe, but there still aren't any in Edinburgh, or London. I work up the Forth Valley from Edinburgh, and there's one in the town I work in, and two more within a 20-30 minute drive. So it seems to be mostly small towns and Glasgow with a Tims.
Doughnuts are the same pish quality as back home, but the (drip) coffee is surprisingly way better! Pretty sure they had to step up their game because they didn't already dominate the "pop in for a to go cuppa" market here. They're also one of the few places I've seen here in the UK where you can get a filter coffee.
I'm participating in the US product boycott from here, in solidarity with my family and nation. Just thought the difference between quality here vs home was interesting.

At this point the only Canadian thing about them is in showing how dumb we can be.

* Buys Tim Horton's.
* Proceeds to vote for Doug Ford and Pierre Poilievre.

Restaurant Brands International owns them along with Burger King, Popeye’s Chicken, and Firehouse Subs. They are headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_Brands_International

Second Cup

They're based in Mississauga but have changed hands a lot in their history.

I think Balzac's is Canadian too. There's are kids of independent coffee shops that are good.

Twiggs Coffee Roasters

BC has Waves, Serious Coffee, Island Grind, Blenz, JJ Bean, and more but thats what I can recall off the top of my head.

Ottawa has Bridgehead

Tim Horton’s is still Canadian. Burger King did not buy them. The two share an owner who is headquartered in Canada.

It's because they can afford to. I remember pre-covid a local gem restaurant bought up a spot in the airport, did well. Covid hit and they didn't have the money to support a location while air travel was at a low. Plus extra costs associated with running a restaurant during a pandemic.

There were other, complex reasons, too. The owners were assholes, some employees spoke out about working conditions, and they had a PR nightmare. But honestly, it was good food.

Still, all those problems would be a blip on the chart for a company like Tim Hortons who can get away with shit quality and shit conditions ad infinitum.

I guess I'm mostly a Harvey's guy as far as Canadian fast food chains are concerned. Pizza, subs, shawarma, etc. are up there too, though there are too many of those to list.

My daughter took me to Odd Burger when I was up in Ottawa and I could totally get into that if only we had one where I am.

The only decent fast food I've had lately is A&W, specifically their breakfast.

They at least make their breakfast the same way I would at home, so it's decent.

McDonald's is awful and has only gotten more expensive. Tim's is meh, I get tim bits and hot chocolate occasionally.

I've found Canadian pastry does not compare with European, which is unfortunate. I think the extra moisture content in our butter means traditional pastry recipes do not translate as well.

I live in the UK, one thing I'll say on this specifically, McDonalds here tastes like it's shit food that's too expensive. In Canada it tastes like shit, but it almost tastes like you're not being bent over the counter and having your pockets turned out.
There's definitely some cities here that have a massive selection of different take away places. London, the only thing I miss about London is the variety of different foods. If I get stoned and drunk and feel like Ghanaian at midnight, it's likely I'll be able to get it. Might be cold, but it'll turn up. I'm in Edinburgh now, and while there's definitely a growing selection of foods, it's still mostly variations of greasy white people food. Take away in the vast majority of medium to small cities is exactly like Canadian cities of similar size, Chinese delivery, 1 or 2 pizza shops almost certainly one will be Domino's, some Indian delivery, 3-10 chippies, and McDonald's, Burger King or both.

I have to agree unfortunately. I've spent a lot of time in the states and have eaten my fair share of McDonalds while living here. I visited my home town in Canada a bit ago, and the Mcdonalds tastes so weird. It wasn't bad perse, but it wasn't exactly good either.

Frankly, probably for the best. Have Canadians save money cooking for themselves or going to places more deserving. Always explore your local non-chain options.