When you stop for coffee on Wednesday morning, you’ll need to stop at someplace other than Tim Hortons.
The Canadian coffee-chain closed its stores in Connecticut and Rhode Island on Wednesday night.
Greg Thomas worked for Tim Horton's for five years, finishing as the baker in the Vernon store.
"They gave me my chance, gave me a chance to do something with my life, turn my life around," he said. "I just started progressing there and I just stayed cuz it was like a family atmosphere there, you know?"
Diane Cratty taped a farewell message to her customers onto the window at the Vernon store.
"I'll miss the customers. So they know that. I'll sit home and cry a lot," she said, after three years at Tim Hortons.
Brianna LaPlante worked at the shop for only three months, but she was angry.
"If they want us to quit our jobs, they expect us to give them two weeks' notice and then they just come into the stores yesterday and shut it down," she said.
The company’s CEO said the New England stores were hurting the chain’s earnings.
The coffee and donut shops have been in Connecticut since 2004, when Tim Horton’s bought out Bess Eaton shops.
"The restaurants we are closing in the New England region have detracted from that performance and our overall development in the U.S. We believe this step removes a significant impediment to our long-term growth and development," President and CEO Don Schroeder said in a release to WJAR in Rhode Island. "These restaurants represent a small portion of our overall system in the U.S, but had a disproportionately large negative impact on earnings, average unit volumes and same-store sales growth in the segment."
LaPlante said workers with less than a year at Tim Hortons get two weeks' severance pay. Those with more than a year on the job at Tim Hortons get four weeks' severance. The checks haven't been mailed out yet.
