Tim Hortons Menu Items The Staff Won't Even Eat

Tim Hortons, with its red-and-white logo, has long been synonymous with Canadian identity — but does it also stand for questionable food? According to employees, there are a lot of menu items they wouldn't order. Founded in the '60s by a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player, the coffeehouse went on to become one of the most famous Canadian food brands.

Now, there are over 5,500 Tim's — also known as Timmies or Timmy Ho's — the world over, and more than 100,000 workers in Canada alone. No one has more insight into how the sausage is made, literally, than the employees who assemble sandwiches and pour coffees. That's why they won't eat just anything off the menu. Whether they're short-staffed or working with subpar ingredients, they know that certain orders are prone to turn out badly.

You might be wondering how Tim's even rose to global prominence as an example of great Canadian fast food. It wasn't always like this; since a 2014 merger with Brazilian conglomerate Restaurant Brand International (RBI), the food quality has sharply dipped. Despite a staggering market monopoly and a lifetime of goodwill, Tim's is no longer Canada's favorite. We've combed through social media channels to see what workers have to say about the worst of the worst — the menu items they avoid because of questionable hygiene and poor preparation standards. Take note so you can save your money and your taste buds.

Read more: McDonald's Menu Items That Even The Staff Won't Eat

Surprisingly, The Donuts

Let's start with the signature baked good and the chain's original selling point: a selection of unique donut options like maple dip, honey cruller, apple fritters, and the oft-overlooked sour cream glazed. It's not just the different varieties that made Tim Hortons' donuts famous. The chain used to employ trained bakers to prepare fresh donuts in the stores every day.

After Wendy's took over in the mid-'90s, the donuts began to be made in a factory before being shipped out to the franchises. While this ensured consistency across the different locations, the products didn't taste as good as when they were freshly baked. It also meant that outlets could no longer make various formats or come up with fun new flavors. Nevertheless, Tim's donuts used to be pretty good when they were made from frozen raw dough. Now, they come par-baked and are fully heated in the stores. In recent years, Tim Hortons' bakers have only been responsible for reheating donuts, filling them, and dipping them in glaze.

Most fast food baked goods aren't prepared from scratch, but par-baked donuts are the least of Tim Hortons' worries, according to a Reddit user who claims to have worked there. They said the glaze at their location sat out uncovered "every day during the 9 months I worked there." Dust and even insects falling in were a common occurrence. We suggest you get your protein from a sandwich instead.

Fresh Eggs

Once upon a time, Tim Hortons' food was mostly prepared fresh — if not exactly living up to the company tagline of "Always Fresh." However, the breakfast sandwiches were made with a preformed egg patty that was uniformly yellow and smooth in texture. In 2021, Timmies announced that it would replace the frozen egg patties with freshly cracked eggs.

For employees, the switch has been a struggle. Other fast food chains have managed to serve fresh eggs in their breakfast sandwiches with great success, but at Tim's, complaints of finding eggshells in the sandwiches have become alarmingly frequent, as staffers attempt to meet tight timelines to prepare each order without wasting any inventory.

Even worse is getting green eggs and ham outside a Dr Seuss book. Green yolks are a sign that the egg has likely been overcooked or that it's old, as one employee notes. Another worker explains that it takes 3 minutes to prepare a dozen eggs, which are then kept in a warming container for 55 minutes. When asked why the supposedly fresh eggs are always green, Tim Hortons employees on Reddit replied that the eggs overcook from being kept warm. Aside from the unappetizing tinge, sitting in holding units is a recipe for dry, sad eggs, even if we assume all locations follow the guidelines and toss them out within the hour (some don't, say employees). No wonder customers and workers alike prefer the "fake" frozen egg patties of yore.

Muffins

Even after frozen donuts became de rigueur at Timmies, the muffins were still made from scratch ... kind of. Employees thawed a frozen premixed batter and baked it in the microwave convection ovens on-site. Now, even the muffins are frozen after baking and are reheated in stores.

For further proof that Timmies has lost any connection to its homespun Canadian roots, the chain has shifted its contract to a Swiss baked goods company that ships products to all its franchises. If you order a warm muffin, an employee on Reddit describes, "We'll throw it in a microwave ... who knows how many preservatives there are?" Do we really want to know? At this point, the only hint of freshness is in the company's tagline.

The croissants, cookies, and pastries, on the other hand, are still made from frozen dough that's thawed and baked in stores. That's as close as you'll get to homemade baked goods in a Tim Hortons today, according to an employee on Reddit. However, another employee on Quora claims that even the so-called fresh baked goods can stay on display for days. So if you're ordering outside peak hours in the morning, you're playing roulette with rock-hard muffins. You're better off making a batch of luscious blueberry muffins and sticking them in your freezer. Microwave them at your leisure for a breakfast that's far superior to Timmies, and a lot cheaper to boot.

The Slow Cooked Chicken

Ah, the good old days back when the chicken noodle soup and turkey bacon club from Timmies was a lunchtime treat, rather than a lunchtime threat. Along with changing the farfalle noodles to shells, the chain has also changed the other fundamental components of the soup.

The so-called slow cooked chicken that now fills Tim's sandwiches is actually poured out of a bag after being pre-cooked and frozen. This shredded chicken mass is heated in the oven and served throughout the day, for a consistency that's 70% chicken and 30% mush, says one Reddit commenter. Naturally, the taste of freshly made chicken is far superior, but the slow cooked chicken seems to have other problems.

"When the slow cooked chicken is taken out of the oven, the smell makes me gag," one employee commented on Reddit. And it's not just the sandwiches you have to worry about. In response to a customer asking whether the chicken in their noodle soup was canned, a Tim's employee confirmed it wasn't. Instead, a scoop of the slow cooked chicken is added to the heated soup base once a customer orders it. That explains the strange, gelatinous texture and suboptimal temperature.

Just in case you needed another reason to avoid the chicken noodle soup, the base mix was also recalled in 2022. The reason? Bug contamination. It turns out the slow cooked chicken isn't the worst thing you could see on your spoon.

Soups And Chili

If you thought it would be fine to just avoid the chicken noodle soup and stick to other varieties, think again. It should come as no surprise that Tim's soups are pre-cooked and frozen, much like the rest of the menu. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since soups usually freeze well and taste just as good once they're reheated.

At home, though, you'd use a Tupperware container and thaw the soup before dumping it into a pot or a microwave-safe dish to reheat it. At Tim Hortons, the staff freeze the soup in plastic bags and boil them when an order comes in. You can bet they're not using sous vide technology; according to an employee, they "throw the entire bag into a pot to boil and then cut open to pour when it's all hot."

Microplastics aren't the only contaminants you need to worry about in your cream of broccoli. One former staffer took to Reddit, saying that when they worked at Tim's, "they used to keep their chili for DAYS and it was crusty towards the 3rd day. I don't eat there." Another employee told Quora that chilis and soups were kept upward of three days.

At this point, you're probably better off opening a can — and Tim's does have its own line of canned soups, with the same varieties offered in-store. If you're still craving the taste of Timmies, that's likely fresher and safer than whatever is sitting at the outlets.

Iced Capps

We apologize in advance for ruining your go-to beverage. The iced capp is the granddaddy of frozen blended coffees and it remains one of the most iconic offerings at Tim's. Creamy and frosty, with a hit of caffeine and a generous amount of sugar, the iced capp experience is truly addictive.

However, our forever favorite hasn't been as delicious as usual. Tim's has been suffering from complaints about the consistency of its food and drinks, and the iced capp is no exception. Fans have all kinds of tips and tricks to ensure their iced capp is up to scratch every time; some ask for it double-blended or advise mixing it with whipped cream (more on this dairy-adjacent substance later).

According to staff, a dark hue is a telltale sign that it won't taste very good. One employee claims the iced capp machine probably hasn't been cleaned in a while if the drink is dark with a yeasty smell. According to another employee, it could also mean the iced capp was made earlier and has been sitting around, causing it to separate.

While some locations are diligent about cleaning the iced capp machines weekly, many are not, according to Tim's workers on Reddit. Some franchises don't clean out their machines for a month or more, leading to accounts of mold and maggots. Ordering ice capps in the summer is a better bet, since demand slows down in winter, making it less likely the machines are regularly cleaned.

Whipped Cream

Whether it's a mug of hot chocolate or a tall, frosty iced coffee, it's just not the same without a tower of whipped cream on top. A cream mustache is one of life's little joys, and it never gets old. No, literally. If you're ordering your drinks from Tim Hortons, the whipped cream lasts for ages, since it's not really made from dairy.

Technically, Timmies can't call it whipped cream, either, according to the chain's employees. They're instructed to avoid the term, and instead, the fluffy white stuff is ambiguously known as "white whipped topping." As for what the mysterious topping actually is? It's made of hydrogenated oils emulsified into a foam, so you get the texture and feel of whipped cream.

"The whipped cream ain't even food," opines one Tim's worker on Reddit. "Unless you count drinking oil as food." It's a grim indictment — especially when you consider that fake whipped cream doesn't need to be a horror show. Cool Whip is a great example of a whipped topping product that isn't cream but can still hold its own in drinks and desserts.

Even the spray can stuff is a better option than Tim's, as it's made with actual cream aerated through a pressurized nozzle. Or you can try this simple homemade whipped cream recipe that only requires heavy cream and flavorings of your choice. After indulging in a dollop of the real thing, you'll never want to go back to Tim's whipped topping again.

Bread And Sandwiches

Is it even possible to screw up bread, especially once you've got it right? Tim Hortons' soft ciabatta-style rolls were once served alongside soups, and there was even chili and stew in a bread bowl for a time. Multiple petitions online plead with the chain to bring the bread bowls back, but maybe it shouldn't. "Their bread hurts the entire cavity of my mouth when I chew it," complains one Quora commenter, who was a baker for Tim's back when the bread was made fresh.You would think that frozen bread laden with preservatives would at least have the benefit of staying fresh forever. Not so, according to customers and workers. Plus, the sandwich bread has shrunk, says one worker on Reddit, while another on Quora doesn't endorse the sandwich fillings such as steak and chicken. For a more satisfying lunch, you should upgrade your homemade sandwich game instead.

Another problem that employees pinpoint with the bagels, English muffins, and sandwich buns is the difficulty in properly toasting them. The toaster calibration is finicky and easy to mess up, with one employee on Reddit calling it "a guessing game." Then there's the lack of time to properly toast bread. Workers claim they are under pressure to get service times down to 20 to 30 seconds per order — while it takes closer to a minute for bread to develop a nice golden brown color. The same applies to the panini press used for the melt sandwich range.

Coffee And Iced Coffee

Before Starbucks, getting a coffee in Canada usually meant going to Timmies. The chain is so deeply entrenched in the culture and keeping up with Canada's large coffee consumption, largely based on French vanillas and double-doubles. Now that espresso bars and PSLs are part of our vocabulary, Tim's humble red cup doesn't hold the allure it once did.

But that's down to the change in the quality of the coffee, too. Nothing hits the spot like a freshly brewed cup, and workers claim that Tim's has relaxed its policy of dumping leftovers and brewing a fresh pot every 20 minutes. The coffee is now left to stew in a thermal container all day, say employees on Reddit. Sometimes the old coffee goes into the fridge for a day or two, where it turns into an unsuspecting customer's iced coffee order. People have even complained of stomachaches, with some blaming the excessive addition of chicory, an ingredient used to cheaply add body to coffee.

The once famous Tim's coffee used to be supplied by Mother Parkers. Around the time that Tim's was merged with RBI, McDonald's was trying to revive its flagging cafe menu. The fast food giant snapped up Mother Parkers as its new supplier, coming up with a strong brew that some swear tastes like the original Tim's. Today, the Golden Arches offer a better cup of joe, although you may want to skip some items on that menu too, according to McDonald's staff.

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