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Steve Thoms: The secret economics of the double-double

Posted: March 10, 2010, 1:09 PM by NP Editor Filed under: Steve Thoms

I don't often tread into the heady waters of economics, but a recent conversation (on Facebook) got me thinking about a topic that I'm sure many of you have noticed: Tim Horton's not take debit or credit cards! I'm told that in British Columbia and Alberta, Tim Hortons does accept debit cards, so the rest of this post will only be applicable to you if you ever take a trip to Ontario and see our wicked, backwards ways for yourself. Tim's (I will use every silly honorific term for the coffee and doughnut chain in this post, so bear with me) in Ontario and most other provinces do not accept debit or credit cards, opting for the traditional cash-in-hand method of payment. I've always assumed (and speaking from many years of experience) that this was because it was simply faster: Anyone who has ever worked in the food service industry at peak hours knows full well how grumpy people can be while waiting for their dinner, lunch, or before-work mastication ritual. Indeed, in any service industry where time is a deciding factor (say, at a movie theatre), merchants will go out of their way to provide anything that shaves precious seconds off the transaction.

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