It’s Time (Travel) For Tims

Tim Hortons is advertising retro donuts. That is, they're bringing back some of the old donut styles, for a limited time only.

On the one hand, that's nice. I miss dutchies too. On the other hand, this relates to a big part of why public opinion has turned against them in recent years: the selection is nowhere near what it used to be - it seems like every time you go in, there's one less thing on the menu. On the other hand, there will be some bizarre item that wasn’t there last time and won’t be there next time. These retro donuts are just the latest in the dizzying sequence of temporary specials.

I assume their strategy of recent years is to reduce the selection of available products to the bare minimum for efficiency's sake. They then compensate for the lack of variety by having the endless stream of temporary features. Hopefully you won't notice the jelly Timbits are gone if you're distracted by the new Chili Lasagne Bowls. But now the irony is that they're distracting us from the poor selection with the old selection.

I can understand why a company would want to restore some of what customers used to like about them. But being a temporary feature, it feels like a bit of a tease. “Hey remember how great it was when we had a wide variety of products? And you used to like us, not just tolerate us? That was pretty nice. Anyway, time's up! Next month’s feature is Chipotle Omelette Balls. Enjoy!”

I'm trying to imagine which other Canadian companies could restore what people used to like about them. Hudson Bay has already been having occasional pop-up Zellers stores, which is a similarly odd strategy of acknowledging what people used to like about the company, but without actually committing to it. I also remember Muchmusic had a daily retro video show a few years back, but even that’s gone now. Also, there’s quite a few companies like Sears where I’d say, it would be great if they’d go back to existing.

So enjoy the retro donuts while you can, and eat as many as your arteries will allow. If they sell well, maybe they’ll make a return, soon, and bring some of the extinct Timbit varieties with them. Until then, enjoy the Tuscan Sausage Dumplings.