Tim Hortons delivers if you spend Dh100

You know the Canadians will be in. Just saying.

Canada's beloved Tim Hortons in the UAE: You know it's a big deal when...

...the launch of a new coffee flavour is billed by the PR as "one of the biggest events of the month", held at SkyDive Dubai hosted by Virgin Radio's Kris Fade. Not to mention the proliferation of outlets in every mall and gas station since 2011 and this 2013 marking of the thaw in Canada-UAE relations.

(As an aside, when my father was visiting over Christmas, we stopped to take a picture of him at the Dubai Mall outlet. A nice Arab man who noticed us stopped and said "welcome home". Aw.)

Remember how excited we got about the first few in Dubai and Abu Dhabi?

UPDATE: Okay, yes, it was the launch of the Dark Roast. Slightly disappointing.

When I moved to Abu Dhabi I never thought...

...that a Tim Hortons would open, let alone that the chain would take over the UAE.

Here's the most recent one I've noticed, at the Etisalat on Airport Road.

Snap caption: The Burj Khalifa in Tim Hortons' coffee cups

Tim Hortons in the UAE: And I thought you advertised heavily in Canada

Look, I have been one of the loudest proponents of the Gulf expansion. Why wouldn't I want one of the most constant and comforting aspects of my life back in Canada here with me in Abu Dhabi? But then I saw this:

Okay, it's a little hard to tell from the picture I snapped on my Blackberry while travelling down Sheikh Zayed Road toward Dubai before Christmas, but each of the three billboards that can be seen here on either side of the road are ads for Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake shop. They were among a series lining the highway. A quiet, deserted highly, lined with the same giant ad everywhere you looked. Then, to our right we saw a giant Tim Hortons warehouse, just as a Tim Hortons truck overtook us to our right.

Spoooooky.

Can this kind of wallpapering of billboards be an effective advertising tool? They were not even helpful billboards. At least the ones in Canada tell you where you can find the next Tim Hortons.

Just a tiny bit more Tim Hortons in Dubai, I promise

Thanks to Dubaiwalla for pointing out Michael De Adder's cute editorial cartoon (I miss those! You don't get them easily online) in Toronto's Metro.

Tim Hortons in Dubai: The National is there

Check out Tahira Yaqoob's spot-on report from the scene of the first Tim Hortons in the Middle East. I love this part:


The entrance is marked by a cheery red sign in English and Arabic reading "Tim Hortons cafe bake shop", Matthew Clarke opens the door with a flourish right on queue, dressed in a hockey shirt and shorts, and announces: "Come on in, the coffee's fresh."


The 50-year-old Emirates pilot from Canada is not even on the payroll; as a customer on his first visit, he is simply over-excited about having a little taste of home in the land where he now lives.

Photo courtesy of James O'Hearn

Tim Hortons in Dubai: Definitive photographic evidence

Thank you Ron Murphy for the awesome photo

Overheard in the newsroom: Tim Hortons in Dubai edition

My goodness, they do look like the real things.

Why isn't there an apostrophe in it?

Annie, I am going to be nicer about Canadians. That doughnut was delicious.

Tim Hortons in Abu Dhabi shipped in from Dubai: IN MY OFFICE, RIGHT NOW

An awesome American colleague brought us three boxes from the new Tim Hortons in Dubai. Like a long-distance delivery of pure love. I just ate a chocolate glazed. I am not going to lie - the sight of that logo choked me up a little. PS she said it was "packed"

Tim Hortons in Dubai: An account by a Canadian who has seen it with his own eyes

James O'Hearn is a totally awesome individual. Not only has he already been to the new Tim Hortons in Dubai (which is, as he describes it, before the first interchange, "right next to a Starbucks, between an Applebees and the French Connection") when it opened yesterday morning he was their very first customer!

In what surely could and will be one of those tearjerker Tim Hortons Christmas commercials, he set his alarm and walked in the doors at 6.55am yesterday to cheers from the staff.

Highlights:
*coffee is Dh7!
*the food tastes the same!
*no everything bagels! (I laughed because so far the only comment on the blog is "are you serious about the no-everything bagel part?" As O'Hearn explains, UAE officials no-likey the poppyseeds)
*American sizing
*no drive-through

I loved this part:


I'm happy Timmies is here, because now I can get a nice soup, bagel, and coffee for lunch. I can grab a pack of Timbits for my kids, or a French Vanilla for my wife, just like how we used to have it back home.


But as much as I am happy, I also wonder... will this be yet one more thing that makes me so comfortable, so complacent, that I end up not going back at all?


And then, an update: I came back, a day later. The place was absolutely overflowing. They literally could not keep stock on the shelves, and one of the managers I had met from the day before was sitting outside, around the corner from the front door, looking like he was ready to just collapse on the pavement. He recognized me, and as we shook hands, he said "Since you came, it hasn't stopped."


I hope to get there this week to file my own report, but for now, he can tell you all about it. With pictures! Over to you, James.

HOLD THE PHONE: Tim Hortons in Dubai

So while I have been focusing my efforts on tracking down the pending opening of (what I assumed to be a Gulf first) Tim Hortons at Abu Dhabi's Mushrif Mall, it seems a franchise has quietly launched in Dubai on Sheikh Zayed Road! An anonymous commenter said as much this week but I thought "why do they know?" (Anonymous commenters on fun blogs don't hold much water with me)

I was just about ready to update you all, letting you know that I have made contact with the PR firm handling the TH opening at Mushrif, filling you in on their hope that it will happen before the year is through when someone sent me a screen grab of a Facebook conversation confirming that Dubai ALREADY HAS a Tim Hortons.

STATUS UPDATE: "WHAAT! Tim Hortons' (sic) opened already?!!! I protest that I have not been told."

Comment: "Sis went with Naoman yesterday. They still not 100% with handling crowds vs serving it right! So, I guess it makes sense to hold off or go during odd hours of the day!"

Comment: "Damn damn damn.... am gonna try a 9am trip tom.. hopefully everyone will be at work by then"

Sigh. A whole bunch of other comments followed, including directions – Sheikh Zayed Road, next to Number One Suites, before Interchange One, heading to AD. So there you have it!

I am grounded in Abu Dhabi for several days, so any reports/reviews/updates etc are welcome.

Also, news that the service isn't great? SHOCKING. 

Tim Hortons in Abu Dhabi: Email exchange with Mushrif Mall management sheds no new light on opening

When Tim Hortons does open in Abu Dhabi I would very much like to write about it; informing other nationalities of the tremendous significance of the outlet being just one aim of such a piece. And so it was last week that, not wanting to wade my way through what I felt could be an arduous and potentially fruitless phone call, if my time in the business of finding things out in Abu Dhabi over the past three years is any indication, I sent the management an email instead. And from the response, I am starting to appreciate what might be holding things up.

Tim Hortons in Abu Dhabi: Moe the commenter investigates, does not like what he finds

Photo courtesy of commenter Moe.

Sad news update:

I was just at the Tim Hortons in Mushrif Mall; its still under construction. the door was slightly open so i looked inside; there is absolutely nothing there. Bare ceilings and walls. no counters, no chairs, no kitchen, not even paint to cover the wall bricks. This is gonna take at least 2 months to complete. 

Commenter Moe

Tim Hortons in Abu Dhabi: Thanks commenter Moe!

Somehow just seeing this picture, thoughtfully submitted moments ago by commenter Moe, makes everything in my life seem better. 

Also Moe reports that Mushrif Mall, home of the world's newest and possibly most exotic Tim Hortons franchise, opens on Wednesday. 

Tim Hortons is still coming to Abu Dhabi: 3 positive indications

Again, my hand. My Tim Horton's. Summer, 2009. 

You may remember this bloggy blog reporting way back on February 3 that a Tim Hortons was probably coming to set up shop in the new Mushrif Mall. (The picture seen here even made it into the Canadian Business Council's spring newsletter, which hopped on the anticipation bandwagon)

That news was obviously super exciting. Well, April 5, the supposed opening date, came and went with no Tims. I am here to say: don't give up. Keep up the faith. I believe, and so should you, because: