How Many Tim Hortons Locations Are There In The US?

If you've ever been north of the border, you know Tim Hortons is a big deal in Canada, boasting over 4,000 locations. While the brand has struggled to make headway in American markets, it has been able to gain ground in 15 states, with plans of expanding in the future via franchisees. Currently, Tim Hortons can be found in Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia. 

As of 2024, there are 697 Tim Hortons locations in the United States, with New York and Michigan boasting the most at 279 and 204, respectively. At the end of 2023, the brand closed the year with the largest number of new locations in the U.S. in five years while celebrating its 60th anniversary. Then, in early 2024, the coffee chain's parent company, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), released plans to open 1,000 stores in the United States by 2028. It appears to be on track to make this goal with new stores set to open in 2025 in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee and Blue Springs, Missouri, along with Coppell, Denton and Saginaw, Texas. 

While Tim Hortons has found relative success in the U.S. thus far, it still faces stiff competition from other established brands like Dunkin' Donuts (with its popular iced coffees) and Starbucks (known for its numerous hacks. These two titans, in particular, dominate the American coffee scene and have made it incredibly difficult for international chains like Tim Hortons to stand out. 

Despite opening nearly 1,000 stores in the United States, Tim Hortons still trails Dunkin' Donuts, which has 9,500 locations, and Starbucks, which has 15,988. This was something Katerina Glyptis, the President of Tim Hortons U.S., spoke about in an interview with Franchise Times in 2023. She admitted that the brand hasn't always used the right strategy when trying to compete with Dunkin' and Starbucks. But she also said it was working on a new approach centered around a compact design for new stores and a condensed menu. Unfortunately, as recently as May 2024, Tim Hortons was still struggling with lower quarter-on-quarter sales and the closure of 20 stores in North America. 

One reason Tim Hortons faces such a challenging environment in the U.S. is because of the nation's market, which is much more competitive and already saturated with iconic brand names. Everybody knows "America runs on Dunkin'," and Starbucks has shops in every single state. Moreover, the Canadian brand has to deal with regionalization, which is one reason there are more Dunkin' locations on the East Coast and more Starbucks shops on the West. Each brand is operating where it originated and built an initial following. Meanwhile, Tim Horton's has seen the most success in locations near the Canadian border, while southern franchises underperform. 

The issues facing Tim Hortons in America were evident even back in 2013, when the Vancouver Sun wrote an article detailing the franchise's low performance in the country. That said, the brand's progress is commendable, and if it continues, Tim Hortons might even gain a foothold in some of the most underrated coffee cities in the U.S.