I am a Baker at Tim Hortons. AMA.

Is it true that most of the food at Tim Hortons is frozen and re-heated?

When you say baker do you mean you make the stuff before it's shipped?

Baker as in the store itself, not the manufacturing plant. and yes that is basically true. biscuits, eggs, sausage, donut bases, all frozen. we fill the donuts and put the stuff that goes on them like peanuts, drizzle, icing and such.

Wait hold up... Their eggs are frozen? I worked at Mcdonalds and even they use fresh eggs, except the folded ones, but no one really buys those. Man, Tim Hortons has really been slipping, I guess because they have such loyal customers that they can just shit all over them.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but we definitely need to reel back the blind loyalty to Tim Hortons in Canada.

They come in a box, and are similar to hockey pucks which is frequently what we use them for with brooms in our down time.

what's something every common, everyday visitor to Tim's should know?

everything is frozen. and it is a difficult job, especially when so many people are ordering food at once. so dont get mad when your order takes a little longer than you expect.

Did you ever overcook or messed up anything while cooking in the store? Is it a big deal? What happens if you get a major burn while cooking?

its hard to burn things since everything has very loud, annoying timers. but if something does burn, which i haven't had happen, you would just throw it away

Do you get to experiment, and if so what cool things have you baked?

not often, we have to do it behind the managers (and cameras) backs. but i made a vanilla filled donut with mint frosting and chocolate drizzle. it wasnt too bad.

Can I hire you to make me tea biscuits all day?

I should mention im in the US, so we dont have some products like tea biscuits

Wait wait wait. Where is this US Tim Horton's?

They're literally on every corner. It's like the hookers of the food industry.

That's not actually true though… There's Tims in New England and Ohio and some other places, but most of the USA doesn't have any. For example, if you search for Tim's near Kansas City, MO, you see that there aren't any within a 50 mile radius.

In the northeast I mean, it's dunkin donuts almost everywhere else.

What do you think is the worst food there?

they are evidently getting a "buffalo crunch" donut, which has an indent in the middle filled with buffalo sauce, and the rest has a hot sauce covering for the crushed chips to stick to. i will not be buying that.

We don't have TH around here, so if I ever do bump into one, I'd like to know your top 3 suggestions of things to try, maybe your favs?

its dependent on location, but i would try the peanut donut, an iced cappuccino, and the turkey bacon club sandwich. i got that every shift for the first few weeks.

What's it like being a baker for Tim Hortins?

well for me it was crappy, mostly because my boss was a scumbag and treated the bakers like dirt. if you can handle lots of abuse and never getting told "good job today" or anything, than go for it. it is all dependent on the location, however.

A donut shop near me is up for sale. If I purchase it, would you teach me your ways?

everything is probably not frozen there, but i can try

What's your worst customer experience?

i don't deal with customers much because im in the back all day, but i have seen a woman just walk in and dump her coffee on the counter because it wan't sweet enough. and there was already like 7 sugars in it.

what is your favorite thing to bake?

Muffins, cuz I put them on a tray and press a button. Easiest things ever. And they smell delicious when they're done.

What was the weirdest experience you had while working there?

Our store is supposedly haunted, like shadows on the security cameras following the openers around, the freezer door opens slightly and closes by itself when I was back there.

What happens to the food that is not sold that day, like donuts? Do they donate anything to the poor?

At the end of the day, everything is thrown. We used to donate, but someone complained of the quality of the donated food so we stopped. Real grateful, right?

I was wondering if a lot of the food at Tim Hortons comes in at or below freezing?

All of the goods you "bake" arrive frozen, some stuff like muffins come in pails of batter that are thawed in the fridge and scooped into pans. When they switched from traditional bakers to the new system, huge parts of the stores were converted to massive walk-in freezers to accommodate the new stock that was previously stored as bags of mix. (I'm not OP, but worked as a baker for three years when they switched to the "par-baked" method)

Muffins haven't been batter for years. They're now also par-baked.

eew. I thought things were bad when I left, but that explains some things.

Yeah the muffins come in boxes, frozen, and in the wrapper. Put them in a rack of 12 and press a button

Why did you quit?

Management was a bunch of slutty teenage bitches who didn't care about their workers.

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The constant need for everything, people yelling at you from every direction things they need, and things your out of. I'm only one person, a human. I can only do so much.

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Our uniforms don't have pockets, and there's cameras on you from every angle that they watch fairly often, so not really.

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I left before they merged, even though there is a BK literally two minutes walking distance from my store.

Did you really quit, if so why?

I did, management was a bunch of scumbags who treated me and everyone else like dirt

What makes your chilli so goddamn delicious?

Don't know, I want to puke when I have to put it in the warmer.

Is that because you pour it out of a plastic bag and the chunky splash that it makes in the warming tray reminds you of throw-up?

That and the smell.

I have never been to a Tim Hortons but am in Canada this weekend. What should I order? I am a big fan of doughnuts.

Yes, the timbits are all good. I'm not huge on sweets, but any of the chocolate cake donuts are good.

Can I only ask you questions on baking ?

no, i was on the floor, as we say, for about a year and two months before i became a baker.

As an American who has never had the pleasure of trying Tim Hortons, how is Tim Hortons?

Anything you get there isn't amazing, but it's cheap. Take anything on their menu, and compare to another place. The other place is better, but Tims is cheaper.

Well said.

Why do tim hortons employees refuse to toast bagels when you ask them to? Literally every single time I ask for a double toasted bagel, when you get it back it's so untoasted that you would've been better off ordering a regular bagel and the breathing hot breath on it a few times.

I wouldn't be surprised if they actually didn't toast it at all, and just ran a sharpie pen around the rims of the bagel halves to make it look like the edges were burnt from the 'toaster'.

I wish I were bill gates rich, I would buy tim hortons and then just terminate the business. Fuck that heap.

The toaster us probably set on a super fast setting, cuz it's probably busy. It's for the sake of time. Not agreeing with it, though.

Is your coffee always as fresh as they advertise it to be? I've gotten burnt coffee a few times that tasted like it had been sitting there for a while. Love the iced Capp though :)

The freshness thing is hit and miss. Get some of the hard-core "corporate kool-aid" ladies and you better your ass that coffee is 20 minutes fresh. Go on a weekend when it's slow as molasses, staffed by 15 year old who couldn't give a crap? You can bet your life savings that coffee is possibly an hour old.

I worked overnight shift. We had a guy so lazy his pots were marked (grease pencil to mark the death time 20 minutes from present time) with a death time of 2+ hours old. Yeah. That was gross.

Exactly

Some things are listed as kosher. What are the odds something listed as kosher will touch/get non kosher stuff on it in the ovens? Are they treated separately?

We have separate trays for donuts and sausage and such, and they even go in separate ovens. The design for the donut tray is more of a wire, while the one for eggs and sausage is a flat pan. Donuts/muffins/etc in one oven, sausage/eggs/bagels in another. And the trays are washed nightly.

Is it true the donuts are shipped frozen and partially cooked and then finished off in store?

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Well said

Favorite donut?

Vanilla dip

FTFY: Baker at Burger King.

No?

Partially why I left

Will you make me some cherry and chocolate timbits?

We discontinued the cherry :(

How do you not weigh 400lbs and have a serious caffeine addiction?

After eating and drinking it every single shift, I want to puke when I smell donuts and coffee now.

Do you work in Canada or the US?

and what do you think of the other side's Tim Horton's?

Also, what do you think of the new flagship Tim Horton's being constructed in Buffalo, complete with a shrine to the former Sabre himself?

I'm in the US, and Canada has smaller portion sizes, at least for the coffee. I haven't heard about that yet, thanks for showing me. I feel like it's gonna get mobbed and do well especially in this area.

What's it like being Canadian?

I work at a US one :(

Forgot about the auto mod. My comment originally:

I'm sure someone else has said this, but you could be in deep shit for this AMA, my friend. Tim's is super litigious, and will lose their shit utterly if you even post something disparaging on social media. As an employee - or previous employee - you probably signed something stating you wouldn't do exactly this sort of thing.

My QUESTION is this - are you aware of this?

No clue, if I signed something about it I lost/threw out the paper. A year and a half is a long time. I haven't really said anything bad about the company, I've just talked about my store and our practices.