Don't Terminate this Tim Hortons on Terminal

This morning I visited Tim Hortons (535 Terminal Avenue, Ottawa) for a little breakfast.

I arrived at 7:30 A.M. to find the drive thru lined up around the front of the store.  I was worried what I would find inside the store during the breakfast prime time rush.

I entered the restaurant, combined with a Wendy's, to surprising be only second in line. Interesting that with the cars lined up out front to visit the drive thru that inside it is calm and hardly anybody in line.  It is the weirdest thing about coffee locations with drive thrus. I waited less than a minute and a Tim Hortons associate was available to take my order.

The Order: 1 Cinnamon Raisin Bagel toasted with plain cheese with a 1 medium black coffee.

I paid, picked up my coffee and headed for the bakery to find my bagel.  At the bakery, the lady smiled at me, put cream cheese on the bagel and handed to me wrapped.

One of the interesting things about Tim Hortons locations in Ottawa is they always give you everything wrapped in to go packaging.  It does not even matter if you order it for here, most times they give you everything wrapped.  There are minority of times where the Tim Hortons workers may coordinate themselves to give you a bagel on a plate, but do expect your coffee to be paper cupped.  In fact, your coffee is most likely to be double cupped.  This is different from the Toronto area where most of the time the Tim Hortons employees insist on you telling them whether your order is "for here" or "to go" before you can even say the word coffee. 

Following the bakery, I then headed over the seating area to find a seat.  The tables looked pretty with the exception of the odd wayward crumb.  I sat down at a table by the window and dug into my bagel while watching the cars at the drive thru continue to spew exhaust. 

The cream cheese bagel was the usual tasty bagel with just more than enough cream cheese to make it extra tasty.  The coffee was as you would expect it from Tim Hortons, not as strong as Starbucks, but don't expect anything too special like a certain flare.  Tim Hortons has become the standard coffee in Canada and they don't ruin it.   This location does great justice to the Tim Horton's coffee, I've been to this location five times and never had a bad cup of coffee, not even a stray coffee ground. 

Overall, this Tim Hortons location provides decent service and a good inside customer experience.  The drive thru at rush hours can be a little maddening, but make sure if you are about to get in line at the drive thru, to check inside first.  It might surprise you that the line up inside is much shorter than the drive thru.  The packaging issue where the Tim Hortons is perhaps a little wasteful, but this may be a local area district supervisor's instructions as all locations in the Ottawa area seem to be following this practice.  With that being said, this Tim Horton's location provides the usual experience all Canadians have come to expect.