Tim Hortons: ‘Our focus is on drive-thrus’

Tim Hortons UK is focusing its openings programme on new drive-thru locations but isn’t ruling out other formats in order to achieve its goal of adding another 50 sites by the end of 2023, chief commercial officer Kevin Hydes told MCA.

The Canadian QSR brand opened 16 sites during 2021 and has open a further nine this year – all of which have been drive-thrus.

“It has been a pretty rapid start,” Hydes said. “We have been taking the business much further out geographically, opening in places such as Ipswich and Western-super-Mare, and then continuing to open in existing territories where we have decent brand awareness, such as Warrington, Stockport, Stirling and Antrim.”

As the year progress it will be more of the same, Hydes explained, with pushes into new locations such as its first site in Park Royal, London, which was announced last week, and Plymouth. Other upcoming locations include Oldbury and Merry Hill in the Midlands.

Hydes said the business has got “a very strong pipeline” and that it has spent the past four years ensuring that it knows exactly where it wants to be located and that it secures the deals for those sites.

Commenting on the target to double its 50-strong estate in the next 18 months or so, Hydes said Tim Hortons was “very confident that we will be achieve that” as it has put in the work in the years that have preceded that target.

Drive-thru market is getting crowded

However, he certainly wouldn’t disagree with comments from other operators that the drive-thru market is more competitive, with the company seeing a marked increase in the number of operators looking to move into that space over the past 12-18 months.

“What makes us different is that we have got a lot of expertise in this area, and a strong reputation with landlords – we work with people like British Land, Landsec and The Crown Estate – and also once open we have demonstrated to those landlords how much of a draw Tim Hortons came be,” he said.

While it is primarily targeting drive-thru locations, Hydes said it wouldn’t rule preclude major high street locations that could potentially work for the brand, such as its Birmingham site on New Street. It is even considering new formats and will potentially be launching some pilots later this year.

“We are eager to develop and understand how we can grow the brand even faster,” Hydes said. “We are considering a number of different options at the moment, and we may well have some news about that towards the end of those year in terms of some pilots.

“I wish we could go even faster with drive-thrus but we may need to find other methods to reach customers.”

Hydes believes the fact the brand’s offering in terms of QSR restaurant food and coffee under one roof, and its coverage of all day parts, makes it stand out from competitors.

“We have worked really hard over the past 18 months to fill in some of the innovation gaps and opportunities around beverages, so we have got some exciting plans for this summer which will introduce some more fruit-based products and still fruit-based drinks as well as new doughnut ranges,” he added.