So the news of the day is that Burger King plans to buy Canada’s icon food purveyor Tim Hortons. The deal will create, if it is consummated, the worlds’ third largest fast food company. WHY is this such a big deal? Well here in the USA BK wants to escape a high tax situation. Canada’s corporate tax rate will save them a bundle. US companies recently have been trying to find ways to do an inversion. That’s what these kind of deals are called. The goal seems to be improve the bottom line no matter what.
I have to wonder if the end result will be best for the company that gets swallowed up. Or indeed for the company doing the swallowing. In the case of BK and Timmys I am inclined to think that Tim Hortons might benefit from the merger, if it is true that the two brands will actually continue to operate independently. Where I live in VT, I am just a few blocks from a BK outlet, a place I rarely go. It’s not my favorite burger place. It happens to be just across the street from where you can get a Big Mac with all the trimmings. I rarely go there either. But, I will say the quality and variety of Mickey D’s menu is probably marginally better. I’m not sure about that of course since I don’t partake of the menu offerings of either, so I can’t really make a valid comparison. I do notice that there is a lot more traffic in the morning at Mickey D’s.
When I say that Timmys might benefit, its because I believe and I think I understand that BK doesn’t do well in the coffee and breakfast department. If BK were to open a Timmys, co-located with a BK it seems to me the traffic would likely improve. But who knows, that remains to be seen. Perhaps a more realistic scenario would be an insurgency of Timmy locations across the US. I certainly would be inclined to go to a Timmys to pick up a coffee and a breakfast item from time to time. I like Timmys coffee, better than say StarB’s which to my mind is rather too bitter.
I don’t have a lot of experience with Tim Hortons either, living in the US as I do, many miles from a convenient Timmys outlet. I do have one gripe, however: Timmys doesn’t take the kind of credit card I carry. That’s a nuisance and I think a bit of arrogance against V$$$. Oh well maybe this too will pass as a result of the buyout.
By now you might be wondering why this rant in connection with my novel The Chechen’s Revenge. Well that’s easy. Early in the story when Sean-Guy and his selected team members are on the way to Mississauga from Ottawa, they stop at a Timmys for breakfast and a conflab about what they think they will be up against when the arrive at their destination. Timmys being located all over the place makes for a convenient place to stop and eat, have coffee and get on the same page. As I wrote the scene, I just simply thought, what a natural thing to do when you are on the road.
Thanks for your support Friends. Good reading to you.
Ron Stotyn, PhD
I am a retired college professor and former broadcast journalist. I live in Vermont with my wife. I write near the shores of Lake Champlain. As an author I cast characters in the task of anti-terrorism efforts. The setting for my stories is Canada. My first novel is The Chechen's Revenge, a story of Sean-Guy O'Dwyer-Lariviere and his team of Canadian Anti-terrorism Service agents on the trail of a rebel Chechen, determined to create havoc and death on Toronto's Go Train system. The Chechen's Revenge is now in print and can be ordered online at https://mkt.com/northof49publishing.
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