Wow, this triggered some nostalgia. Tim Hortons hasn't been a legitimate source of remotely decent quality products for a long time, and everything in the intro

Wow, this triggered some nostalgia. Tim Hortons hasn't been a legitimate source of remotely decent quality products for a long time, and everything in the intro totally holds up. As Tim Hortons started cheapening their products to the point of absurdity, I started exploring Robin's, which the author is probably familiar with. They'd been on the decline for a long time, never quite finding a way to compete with Tim's, but all the while maintaining relatively high quality doughnuts. The first time I went, I discovered my favourite; Walnut Crunch. It had a wonderful texture, akin to what you'd now find in fancy places where the doughnuts cost $4; a little crumbly, but not too much; you can feel your teeth go through it, and a little crunchy because of the walnuts. I stayed there late on many nights up until even 2019, because there was nobody ever there except seniors using it as one of their last remaining "third places". I'd order walnut crunch and coffee every half hour or so, and grind away at my homework. One thing I still go to Tim's for occasionally is their bagels. Only because they're cheap, and recently I noticed that while there were no other customers in line, the employees—who are largely there as the result of abusing the temporary foreign worker program and don't at all get paid enough for the work they do—were relentlessly cleaning anything they could, such as dusting behind the display signs. Meanwhile, I'm staring at the repulsive mess of Tim Biebs and soggy "Dream Doughnuts", wondering how the hell we got here.