Ahead of its official opening on Monday 9 August, the Tim Hortons team at The Galleries, Washington, invited us down to see what they’re all about!
Here’s our first look what Canadian delights Tim Hortons has in store at its first North East restaurant…
FIRST IMPRESSIONS…
Arriving bright and early at 10am, we were welcomed into the brand spanking new building. With dim lights and a wood heavy interior with splashes of their signature Canadian red, the restaurant has that classic cosy coffee shop vibe.
It’s a relaxing atmosphere that puts you right in the mood for a nice warm coffee and a donut. Speaking of, you can smell the freshly baked donuts and rich coffee as soon as you walk through the door – I can’t think of a better smell to be met with on a morning!
Don’t worry if you won’t have time to sit-in when you come to visit for the first time, they’ve got a drive-thru too!
THE FOOD…
The food more than lived to the hype! Their breakfast meal deals are only £1.99 and there’s a huge selection to choose from. They’ve got bacon rolls, bagels, and a huge range of muffins – even a veggie sausage one! We had one of their famous French Vanilla Lattes with out brekkie and it was absolutely divine – sweet, but not so sweet that it becomes sickly.
When lunch time hits their £6.19 lunch time meals are sure to hit the spot. There’s chicken wraps, chicken burgers, chicken tenders and toasted melts, all of which are cooked fresh to order. Again, theres also a scrumptious vegan wrap too.
Finally, we had to try out the donuts. The team kindly gave us two boxes to take back to the Vibe office and they were gone as quick as a flash. From the delightfully simple Canadian Maple to the indulgent Caramel Apple Fritter, all of Tim Horton’s baked goods are to die for! Not to mention the famous TimBit donut boxes, featuring an assortment of smaller donut balls for those that simply can’t decide. Whatever you choose, we can guarantee it’ll be lush!
A CHAT WITH THE BOSS…
After we’d finished our delicious scran, we got a chance to speak to Tim Hortons Chief Commercial Officer Kevin Hydes. We asked him about how the restaurant plans on replicating that famous Canadian hospitality here in the North East. Kevin said:
“I think the main thing is Canadians are known for being welcoming and friendly – so, we always try to make sure when we’re recruiting in the local area that our employees are welcoming and friendly too!
“The other thing that is very important is that Canadians are people that value working hard and so do people in the North East. We want to instil those values in our restaurants and represent that hard working spirit – and the people we’ve recruited here are brilliant.
“We’ve recruited over 50 people from the local community, there’s a range of full time and part time roles, and that enables us to make sure we’ve got connections here in the local community which is really important to us.”
The Galleries restaurant officially opens its doors Monday 9 August and the first 100 people there will be treated to a free breakfast meal. But, if you’re the very first person through the doors or the drive thru you’ll bag yourself free coffee for a year! You’ll have to be on the ball though, because competition for the free coffee has been crazy at past openings…
“We have two queues for the opening – the walk-in and the drive thru, so two people can win the year’s worth of free coffee,” continued Kevin.
“Last week I opened a restaurant in Chester and the person that arrived first at the drive thru came at 3pm the day before we opened and spent 16 hours in their car to win the coffee!”
The Washington branch will open at 7am – so get down early to be in with a chance of winning or pop along later and check out what Tim Hortons is all about in your own time. We highly recommend it!
Will you be getting down to Tim Hortons when it opens this month? Get in touch online. Twitter: @SunderlandVibe, Instagram: @SunderlandVibe, Facebook: @SunderlandVibe.
