Yesterday I left you with the cliffhanger of where we go for our coffee fix, as Canadians with no Tim Hortons coffee shop anywhere nearby.

If we’re on the go, the Needs convenience store has carafes of several kinds of coffee on tap all day. We’ve adopted the local favourite of half coffee and half cappuccino as our usual cold weather drink.

If the situation calls for some sit-down time, there’s the Chowder House restaurant that serves coffee and muffins and, a few kilometres away in Brule, the bakery shop that offers hot drinks and yummy home-baked goodies.

The locals have never been surprised that the traffic “non-flow” in the off-season wasn’t enough to warrant a Tim’s franchise here.
And, besides, Mr. Joyce wasn’t wild about taking what business there was away from the local restaurants.

But a couple of years ago, the new owner of the motel started closing its attached coffee shop for the winter, and the number of year-round regulars at the Chowder House down the street was outgrowing the table space there.

So it was with keen interest that everyone watched as a new Shell service station went up just west of the village.
It has a sub shop, snacks & sundries AND a Robin’s donut outlet with half a dozen tables & a drive-through window. I know that Robin’s isn’t Tim’s but it didn’t take long for regulars to take up shop there. It’s a hopping place 18 hours every day.

So rest assured, dear readers, that we WILL survive here and that you needn’t make any emergency shipments of Tim’s regular grind to us. We even have a contest: instead of “rolling up the rim” each spring, we “sip and flip” in Robin’s “Sip to Win” game.

But if you were ever coming out for a visit though, a dozen Krispy Kremes would make you a very welcome houseguest in Tatamagouche! (Ah – the luxuries of the city!)

So what about you? Could YOU live without your Tim’s or Starbucks or whatever your current habit is?

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