Windsor Hospital Tim Horton’s Losses Continue to Pile Up

In 2012, the Tim Horton’s at the Windsor Regional Hospital made national headlines for losing around $265,000 that year. This contributed to SecondStreet.org’s decision to look into hospital cafeteria (and restaurant) losses nation-wide in 2020.

In 2020, we published a report counting up losses from hospital-run cafeterias across the country. It showed that the Windsor hospital’s ‘Met Campus’ Tim Hortons had continued to lose money: in the 2018/19 fiscal year, it was a loss of $27,069.

In 2021, we released data showing that between 2010-11 and 2018-19, the Windsor Regional Hospital’s Tim Hortons at its Met campus had lost $1.7 million. What’s more startling is that these losses didn’t factor in the cost of rent or utilities between. Thus, if you used standard accounting practices, the losses would be even higher.

New data obtained by SecondStreet.org shows the government-run Tim Hortons has continued to lose money, bringing losses since 2010-11 to just under $2 million.

Readers should note the hospital runs a second Tim Hortons – at its “Oulette Campus.” Since it opened in 2015, it has managed to generate a total profit of about $200,000.

At one point, the hospital’s CEO, David Musyj, argued that if you combined the Met campus’s Tim Horton’s losses with a small profit made by the hospital’s other Tim Hortons at its Ouellette Campus, there was a slight profit overall. It doesn’t make much business sense to keep open a money-losing franchise, but even if you use Musyj’s approach, the math no longer makes sense. Since the Ouellette Campus’s Tim Hortons opened in 2015, the pair of government-run franchises have lost close to half a million dollars combined. 

Since 2010, the Windsor Regional Hospital has lost a combined $1.8 million through its two Tim Hortons franchises.

That’s a drop in the bucket for the entire hospital’s budget, but think of all the ways that money could have helped patients. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the average knee replacement in Ontario costs the government approximately $11,500 to provide. That means the wasted money from the Met Campus Tim Horton’s could have paid for nearly 200 knee replacements. 

What should be more important to patients? Running a money-losing coffee shop or using the funds to provide vital surgeries to patients?

The choice is obvious.

Dom Lucyk is the Communications Director with SecondStreet.org.