Now back to the donut

The first "Tim Horton" (the "s" came later) store opened in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario. The business was founded by Tim Horton, who played in the National Hockey League from 1949 until his death in a car accident in 1974. Soon after Horton opened the store, he met Ron Joyce, a former Hamilton police constable. In 1965, Joyce's entrepreneurial spirit had come to the fore and he took over the fledgling Tim Horton Donut Shop on Ottawa Street North in Hamilton.

By 1967, after he had opened up two more stores, he and Tim Horton became full partners in the business. Upon Horton's death, Joyce bought out the Horton family and took over as sole owner of the existing chain of forty stores. Joyce expanded the chain quickly and aggressively in geography and in product selection, opening the 500th store in Aylmer, Quebec, in 1991.

Ron Joyce's aggressive expansion of the Tim Horton's business resulted in two major changes in the coffee and doughnut restaurant market: independent doughnut shops in Canada were virtually eliminated, and Canada's per-capita ratio of doughnut shops surpassed those of all other countries.

The chain later went public under the corporate name "Tim Donut Limited". By the 1990s, the company name had changed to The TDL Group Ltd. This was an effort by the company to diversify the business, removing the primary emphasis on doughnuts.
Some older locations retain signage with the company's name including a possessive apostrophe, despite the fact that the official styling of the company's name has been Tim Hortons, without an apostrophe, for at least a decade.

Merger with Wendy's
In 1992, the owner of all Tim Hortons and Wendy's Restaurants in Prince Edward Island, Daniel P. Murphy, decided to open new franchise outlets for both brands in the same building in the town of Montague. Murphy invited Joyce and Wendy's chairman Dave Thomas to the grand opening of the "combo store", where the two executives met for the first time and immediately established a rapport.

A Tim Horton's / Wendy's sign in Milton, OntarioMurphy's success with combining coffee and doughnuts with Wendy's fast food led to the August 8, 1995, agreement that saw Wendy's International, Inc. merge with TDL Group. Joyce became the largest shareholder in Wendy's, even surpassing Thomas. TDL Group continued to operate as a separate subsidiary from its head office in Oakville, Ontario, although Joyce eventually retired from active management to pursue other interests.