Tim Hortons
reviews and complaints

I am quitting my job as a storefront employee at Tim Horton's. I've worked there for almost 6 months and for about 5 and a half of the 6 I was treated like absolute garbage. Today I called in sick; I had gall bladder stones and was unable to get out of bed, my throat was swelling shut and had a migraine so severe I could not open my eyes. When I called to tell my boss, she screamed at me loud enough for my mother in the next room to hear her. She said that "health issues were not her problem, and it wasn't fair to her". She told me that if I called in sick again, she would fire me. I just wrote my letter of resignation and plan on submitting it tomorrow.

Now I've always have good-great customer service at many Tim Hortons in and around Canada but I had to vent on this one since I've never experienced this poor attitude of this one particular employee in my whole life! We had a connecting flight at Pearson and stopover was 3 hrs so we (wife and 2 young children) decided to have a quick bite for lunch. My wife ordered at Tim Hortons, there was a burger stand which was connected next door. My wife ordered the chilli combo where the picture shows a doughnut, coffee, chilli, and breadstick for $5.49. The lady (Nalina was her name) must have had a bad day (working on Labour day) and never cracked a smile or anything while she took the order (that's fine with me). She asked my wife if she wanted the doughnut and we were hesitant since we didn't want too much sugar. We decided to opt out. She told us the total was $6.09 (with tax) and we paied. After looking at the chili combo picture which showed the included doughnut we said that if you charged us for the combo, then we'll take the doughnut. At this time, the lady said "too late" I asked you 3 times. I was in awe. I said excuse me? She said "next". I sat down, still not sure if I heard wrong but I think I got jipped (it's the principal)! I went back a few mins later and asked her politely that I only wanted to know if the chili combo comes with the doughnut. She kept saying I asked you already and you said no. I said, that's not my question, I'm asking if the doughnut is included with the chili combo. She never answered my question and kept saying it's too late. At this time both my wife (who works in HR) and myself (customer service) got so irritated, we asked another clerk (who just watched this whole episode as well as some customers) and she told me that I would have to add .15 cents to get the doughnut (whilst Nalini was still shouting in the background). We ate our food and then i proceeded to walk to the Survey box and picked up a survey to express my dissatisfaction of this employee (had to pass Nalini's cash register so obviously she saw). I proceeded to sit down and write, she came over and showed me her name tag and said in a snickering voice, "this is my name, do you want my manager's tel# too ? " I said sure and she walked away. This could've been resolved if she 1) either give us the doughnut if it's included in the price of the combo 2) answer yes or no if the price of chili combo includes the doughnut. I'm still not sure since the picture shows doughnut, chili, coffee, and breadstick says $5.45. If it doesn't then Tim Hortons should correct this since it's very misleading (no words indicating what's included). I'm always happy going to Tim Hortons, but now I feel that Corporate really has to improve their customer service and have a manager present (no manager when I was there or maybe he/she hiding). Oh well...didn't find any complaint on Tim Horton's site. Maybe this will help future patrons when they read this.

I have bought different mugs at different Tim Horton's and they have been ok up until a few months ago, now every one leaks and have ruined many shirts and blouses. I don't know if you have changed companies that produce them, but it is very aggravating to be on your way to work and have coffee leaked all over you. I love the coffee but need a good travel mug. HELP!

0n 8/15/11; i bought 1 med hot chocolate/whip cream, 1 small white milk and 3 donuts for 6.58 including tax. next day 8/16/11 i bought 1 large hot chocolate, 1 large ice tea, 1 small white milk and 3 donuts to go was told by young woman it was 7.86 handed her my visa card and was charged 17.86 for my order! called store told can't help me, why, you can go into yesterdays cronos and pull up my order online and give me back my overcharge if you really wanted to. now i will never buy from you again and i work at the grocery store down the street and see hundreds of customers a day and will tell my customers not to go to your coffee shop. nice customer service, the store i work at we treat the customer better than this. i know customer service, i work in a customer service center, you get better customer service from American companies.

After me and my coworker both getting fired unfairly from a tim hortons store, this is a copy of the email I send to the corporate head office. I have gotten no response so far from them or my boss..

Hello.

My name is belinda blake.
Me and ronald massier were both fired unfairly from store #1436.

I have been employed there since february, and ronald has been there for almost 4 years!

We have had alot of trouble with that store, especially when it was run under michel masse. We had managers who started the cash with negative amounts of money, and then told us to pay them. I had coworkers who verbally abused me, that the boss did nothing about. Ronald even had coworkers who physically abused him, and the boss never seemed to care.

Me and ronald worked the night shift, the shift that no one wanted, because in downtown montreal, there are alot of crazy people. We had customers scream at us, and throw things at us, call us names, threaten to kill us, even hit us... Yet still we stayed and did our job because we loved and enjoyed working for tim hortons.

After michel went bankrupt, tdl took over the store until the new owners came. Phillip adans was our store manager, and everything was great under his run. Phillip was a great boss, everything was going well, we had no trouble at all.. And he settled whatever was wrong.

We were then doing things by the laws of tim hortons (Ex: throwing coffee out every 20 minutes, so it is 'always fresh', and taking the temperatures of products, and actually watching all of the employee training videos (We are both at 100%!)

But then phillip gave us the news that the store had been bought by richard espinos and alexandra daas. We never wanted phillip to leave, but we knew he had to go and we hoped that everything would go as well with the new bosses as they were running at that moment with phillip.

We were wrong.

Everything in the store fell apart, and the bosses did not care about anything. All they wanted was the profits. They told us to keep the coffee for hours, erasing the time on the coffee pots, and then when you see them changing colors, to put them into the ice coffee... Including the decaf coffee!

The store manager, andrei odorico yelled at me one morning and told me to 'shut up, and stop wasting money' because I said that I did not find it right to serve customers ice coffee that was decaffeinated, so I poured the decaf coffee in the sink. 

Andrei also yelled at me another time because I asked him a question as to why he handled something in the manner that he did. He yelled (Infront of customers and coworkers) "why don't you just mind your own business and stop telling me how to do my job belinda?" to which I replied "I just asked you a question" and he walked away without answering.

Thinking from a manager's perspective, if an employee asked me a question I would answer them, that way they can learn from what I did.

Yet because he was giving free bottles of water away to homeless people who were harassing all the customers and who threatened to kill us, he did not want to justify why. 

Also, the new bosses told us to forget about taking the temperatures, they don't care if anyone watched the training videos, and they don't want to cross-train anyone at all. None of the employees help anyone else, and none of them do their jobs properly.

We, as the oldest employees left (After everyone else quit because they were fed up of andrei's attitude) (I have proof of this through emails) were told that we would be made night shift supervisors. 

We were the hardest working employees in that store. We did everyones job, and every single day we told the bosses that the 3-11 shift don't do nothing and that we had to do all their work.. And every day the bosses told us they were 'busy' or that they 'had a meeting to go to' and that they'd 'look into it'.. Yet never did.

Coming in at 11pm every single day, the store was a mess. I have pictures I took of garbages outside overflowing to the point where people were just throwing their trash on the ground. They never in their whole shift passed a cloth on the counter. Hard ice cap mix was stuck to the counter and spinners, the french vanilla/hot chocolate machine was filthy and had never been cleaned, and everything was empty!

I had to spend the first 15-20 minutes of my shift refilling things so that I could serve customers, meanwhile leaving my coworker in a rush by himself (We were only 2 employees at night so the boss could save money). 

There was no coffee, no sugar, no french vanilla, no hot chocolate, no box with bags of coffee, no cream, no milk, no creamers, no milkers, no filters, the sandwich fridge was completely empty, no straws, no stir sticks, no cups, no covers, no napkins, no filters, no smoothtim or ice capp mix in the machines... No nothing.

So we refilled everything every single day, and spoke to the bosses every single morning, even though they didn't care. I even made them lists as to what was empty, which they took and hung on the wall in their office, but it never went further then that. We were left with unworkable conditions, yet every day we did everyone else's job.. As well as ours.

We would even find english muffins, breakfast biscuits, and hash browns still sitting on the counter when breakfast finishes at 11 am. Yet we would throw them out and wash the trays when we came in at 11 pm! No one in 2 whole shifts could have done that! And in the other shifts they were alot more employees then just 2!

So we kept on doing everyone else's job, every single day. Meanwhile the bosses would yell at us in the morning that the bathrooms were 'filthy' (After sweeping up 3 pieces of toilet paper and spraying air freshener she said that they were 'perfect!'), and telling us to go and clean the windows outside of the store, and yelling at us for dumping coffee in the sink after the 20 minutes were up.

They would ask us how our night was and when we started talking they would say 'oh, that's nice. I'll see you later.."and cut us off.

Then we started seeing someone from the 3-11 shift and 2 from the 7-11 shift become green shirts. They had promised us we would be shift supervisors.. And we were the ones doing everyone else's job, yet they were promoting other people instead and leaving us to do all of the work in the whole entire store.. While everyone else got the credit and promotions? 

It was unfair.

So we spoke with them again and they ignored us and said they had to go.
My coworker told the store manager that he'd see what would happen if everything was empty again because he was fed up of doing the work other people got the credit for (Ronald has been there for almost 4 years and everyone he trained became managers and he was overlooked every single time for a promotion because 'of his race'.. Which were michel masse's words exactly).

So the next night we started our shift. The 3-11 supervisor (Usman) was in the back, there were only 2 employees on the floor.. And one (Marie) asked usman to help, because there was a huge crowd! Usman said"who cares? In 2 minutes it's belinda and ronald's problem.. Just leave the customers there for them". Everything was empty, the store was a mess, the bathrooms were a mess, everything was filthy, and the garbages were overflowing.

I was very angry, yet still started my shift anyway. Ronald, on the other hand, came with all his stuff and told me he was leaving. He was fed up of doing everyones work and he was leaving the store. I said"you can't leave me alone"and he said"then come!"

Back when the owner was michel masse, my coworker walked out one night and I was left to work completly alone. As a young woman, I did not feel safe and was worried the whole night about my safety, yet I worked anyway.

This time I was not going to serve all the crowd of people (That the 3-11 shift had left for us!) so I took my stuff and followed ronald to tell him to call andrei (Store manager) so we could get the situation settled. 

Ronald told him that the store was in"unworkable conditions". And that every single day we did everyone else's job while everyone else got the credit. Andrei asked if we would go back that night and ronald said"if they clean and fill everything that they were suppose to, then yes!"and andrei said"I understand. I'll call you in about an hour and let you know". So me and ronald sat for 3 hours outside and andrei never called. Finally, we both went home and the next night I was leaving for work when ronald called me and told me that another employee had heard the news that we both had"quit".

I texted andrei (Because he would never answer the phone, you could only text him!) and asked him why he told people that. He wrote back"bring back your uniform". I said"I never quit! You never called us back and we waited there!"he said"you walked out on your shift, so you quit". I walked out to bring ronald back and because I didnt want to work alone again, like I had to once before. I was afraid for my safety.. And customers would be angry and would be yelling at me because the service would be slower then usual.

So I asked for my bosses number, and he said that they"didn't want to speak to us"and I called the next morning and andrei answered the store phone and said they still didn't want to talk to us. So I emailed them the truth, that I did not quit.. And said that it was unfair to fire me or assume that I had quit when no one ever even spoke to me.. They spoke with ronald.

And andrei as a store manager asked if we would come back, ronald said in an hour, andrei said he would call us, and then he never did! He can't make it seem like we can come back in an hour, and then say that we"quit"because we walked off our shifts! We wanted to come back. We wanted to work. But we really wanted safe and workable conditions!

We don't have a union at tim hortons, so it's every employee for himself. Unions plan walk outs and strikes all of the time. The one time my coworker walks out because he is fed up, and the one time I follow because i'm afraid for my safety, we get fired, even after the store manager said we could come back and that he'd call us?

I find this very unprofessional and unethical.

I finally did get to speak to my boss the next morning, and I told her everything. I told her I was afraid for my safety. I told her it was unworkable conditions. I told her what andrei did. She didn't care. She told me I was"no longer employed there". She also told me that crying on the phone (I was very upset!) would not make her take me back.

I was devastated.

And now I lost the job that I loved the most. I was proud to work for such a great company. I have no friends in my life, other then the coworkers and conversations I had with the customers.

Now I have absolutely nothing.

I have no money and am trying desperatly to get by. I have no friends. I have no more confidence. I have nothing.

And why? Because I was afraid for my safety and left that day and then was lied to by the store manager that we could come back and then he told everyone that we quit when he fired us.

This is extremely unfair and I want everyone to know the truth.

I want my job back. 

I very much enjoyed working for this company and I really want to continue working for you and to make tim hortons a long term career.

Even after all of the emotional, verbal, and mental trauma we suffered, we would still like to return to work.

Thank you.

Belinda blake

I work at tim hortons, and its really hot in the summer due to the coffee machines, we have asked for "something" to help cool us off and we were denied.
We asked for:
A Fan (even a small one)
The AC to be corrected (its never worked)
even our own little personal fans.

All 3 were denied, because the manager said it would decrease the temperature in tim hortons coffee. Obviously, tim hortons doesnt give a [censored] about thier employees. I remember working there 3 years ago - they had a woman in drive thru with me doing window.. she was 7 mnths preg and she ended up fainting ON ME, because it was so damn hot.

The only window we have in the store is the drive thru window, and half the time there is no wind coming through,

The AC will not put the temperature down THAT MUCH and I dont see why we are not allowed to have a fan since its only recirculating hot air anywyas..

I walked into the Tim Horton's and ordered 1 dozen donuts and asked if they could be packaged in 2 smaller boxes because they transport better. The teller rang it up as (2) half dozen orders chargin $4 more than the cost of a single dozen. I said i didn't order that. The teller got the manager who became extremely Rude stating that it was company policy. I left without a purchase, went home and sent an enquiry to Tin Horton's head office explaining what had happened and asked if this was policy. I received a telephone reply Appologizing for the treatment i received at Tim Horton's Campbell River outlet and informing me i should not have been charged for 2 half dozens when my order was for 1 Dozen. The Tim Horton's rep said It is not unrerasonable to ask for the order to be packaged in 2 smaller boxes.
They said they would inform the regional Manager and get it straightened out.

I just returned to the same store a month later and placed the same order... Same thing all over again . When I explained what head office stated on the subject. The teller went and got the head Manager who was extremely rude and refused to listen or contact Head office. What a waste of time. Customer Service = 0

Conclusion... The Tim Horton's Campbell River store is opperated by theives deliberatly overcharging its customers. If your a charity is receiving money from this store its likely stolen from unsuspecting customers who've been over charged.

I'll be filing another complaint with head office as well as a letter to the editor of our local paper.

I am in this location everyday and i notice the same things happening when one particular supervisor is working. This supervisor walks past the counter clearly seeing me in line. She then goes and stands by the drive thru window and yells for staff to come from the kitchen to clear the line. It would have been a lot faster and i would have been a lot happier if she took the minute to serve me. Honestly i do not think this is the romodel you want for your staff. . This supervisor to me looks very lazy. I stood there thinking why couldnt she serve me when she only walks by to go and do nothing at the drive thru. The management at this location need to train her over and advise her that serving customers should be number one priority. I truly feel sorry for the regular staff that have to deal with this supervisor. .

I bought a Tim Horton's "Real Fruit Smoothie" the other day, and I
wondered if it was legal to describe such a substance as Real Fruit Smoothie. It
wasn't a smoothie, it was a slushie as it was full of crushed ice with some flavouring substance in it, and it tasted very artifical. It clearly was not a smoothie made of real fruits. This was blatant dishonesty in advertising a product. What can be done?

I use to really like Tim Hortons but i have to say that in the past few years they have gone down hill. It doesn't matter which location i have gone to they seem to always make miststakes with the drinks or food! on this particular day my parents stopped in one to pick up some lunch for all of us. When they got to my house they gave my son the broccoli soup that he loves so much. As he was eating it he spit out something...(he's 6 yrs old) and when i asked him what happened he said he had something in his mouth. It was a piece of sharp PLASTIC! i couldn't believe it! he could've swallowed it! I'm so greatful that he didn't. I am not going to be eating anything from them again.
I'm going to go and complain to the manager and the head office.
As for the coffee...they messed it up as well...ALWAYS! I don't understand how they can mess up making coffee every other time that we go. I think i'm going to start going to Starbucks!

The so called "owner" of this business is a certified loser. I was flirted with and then he tried to friend me on FaceBook. He has a wife and a kid and when I come in, I feel weird because its obvious she knows he hits on customers. Its pretty disgusting. Plus his employees have hickeys and neck tattoos. I have stopped going in there because the "free food" he offers me is not "free", it comes with an offer to hook up. I just wanted some coffee! This large headed owner is not my type of coffee!
Pretty ladies beware!

I have been a twice maybe three times a day Timmies customer for almost 10 years now and recently switched to decaffinated coffee for medical reasons and am very disappointed with the quality or consistency of quality for decaf coffee. Ive always thought timmies had a 20 mins fresh standard but over the past week I have had 3 or more coffees that have been absoultley HORRIBLE burnt beyond belief. I am a chef and I know quality is key in serving customers and fresh is always the best way to go. I know and have experience many many crazy days at timmies but is it honestly that difficult to dump a pot and make a new one? Should I be going in at 4am when I grab my coffee and ask them(pester them) to make me a fresh pot of decaf? I dont want to be that pushy customer but Im educated enough to know that my money has high expectations and deserves more than this black glit that they try to call coffee...NEXT time Ill be going straight to the manager...I hope she/he is awake and working at 4am this week! This is every single timmies between napanee and Kingston...

dissatisfied customer

Our 15 year old daughter recently applied for a job at Tim's. At her interview, the woman interviewing her told her that it was mandatory for her to work midnight shifts. Our daughter replied that her parents would not be comfortable with that. Obviously she was not hired. If this is a company policy, it's ridiculous to make minors work midnight shifts. If it's not a policy the manager is way out of line expecting that from young school age people. We recently visited the same location for coffee and soup. The service was VERY bad. The girl that was hired was a jerk, she never cracked a smile, barely spoke and messed up our order and the orders of most of the people behind us. They were also out of buns for sandwiches.

April 6, 2011; 11:10 am. Waited in drive through line at TH, ordered a coffee and toasted C&R bagel with butter. Moved to the window, paid, received correct change, received correct coffee, was told the bagel would be another minute. Waited three minutes (was watching the dashboard clock). Two female staff members were busy talking behind the drive through window. One would enter a purchase into the till, then turn around and talk; the game being to do what you needed to do quickly, then chat with your co worker.. A third female co -worked joined them, then a fourth showed up at the window and laid a bagel on the counter, and said plainly "Toased C&R bagel with butter" then stood and joined the conversation with the other three. After another minute and a growing lineup behind me, I drove away without the bagel.
Now, I don't care about who the people are, or way they come from, but I do wish they would grasp the idea of efficiench and customer service. It was apparent that the staff I saw were more interested in socializing then serving. There was a line up inside the location, and an even bigger one in the drive through once this was all done. When I initially pulled up to the window, there was one (1) vehicle behind me, when I left there was several cars behind me, and, several more lined up in the parking lot.