In Canada, if you want to rank coffee, it goes McDonalds > Starbucks > piss water >>>> tim hortons. Obviously, if you're in a major city, local coffee shops are way better.
Every time I read about Tim Horton's online, people always talk about how terrible it is. But every time I visit Canada, I'll stop at multiple Tim Horton's during my time there and they are always busy. Maybe it's not great, but it's good enough for how fast and cheap it is.
I think the draw is the doughnuts; we don't have Krispy Kreme or any of those other chains here. While people are at Tims to get doughnuts, they also pick up other things.
Also, they build Tims in some very rural areas that Starbucks would never bother with, and keep them open pretty early/late (sometimes 24hrs), making them one of the few places to congregate at those hours in small towns. Tims (and A&W, oddly) are where you'll find the seniors who can't stop getting up at 3AM, sitting and reading the paper.
It really is because a) traditionally tims used to be really good. b) tims is literally everywhere. I don't think there's other fast food or coffee chain here that is so omnipresent c) they were a Canadian brand and still try to portray themselves as one even though now they are owned by a Brazilian company.
It really isn't that cheap tbh. A coffee at McDonalds is gonna cost about the same price, and starbucks is like $0.5 more.
