Not a Fair Trade: Tim for Jim

Once again it has come up in conversation: The UnFair Trade of Main Street. Which trade am I talking about? Timmy for Jimmy. This past November, a fire broke out in Kishu Island Restaurant on Main near Broadway and took out the neighbouring businesses. These businesses included Slickity Jim's, a hipster hangout where we enjoyed lovely breakfasts like the Mean Teen Queen and the Cheesy Fungi, Zokalo's, The Militant Penguin and our Canadiano mugs at Lugz.

Whenever this fire is brought up, the banter usually begins with, "I hear a Wendy's and Tim Horton's is going into the old Bank space on the corner." This is usually followed by groans, disgruntled protests and a whole lotta cryin' shames. No, it's not fair that our choice of coffee houses will be traded from our beloved Jim and all of its eclectic mounted collectibles to sterile fluorescent backlit signs with all of the calculated packaged consumables from Tim. We will be going from being called darlin' at Slickity Jim's or being given a coffee inferiority complex by obnoxious service from the coffee freak at Lugz to being called sir or madam with indifferent service by the 15 year old who is anxiously waiting to get back to texting her friend under the counter. Sure we will be able to access all of the food we expect on a cross Canada Road trip right in our own backyard, and yes we will include it on the coffee rotation when you really only have time to get a double double, and perhaps we may be able to have some indie Main street movie maker come up with their own hilarious version of a warm hearted Sidney Crosby commercial. However, the fact that we are trading all of that for places that helped make Main Street the cool part of town seems like a major rip off. Having Tim and Wendy move into town is like having a gateway from the westside where timid kids from Kits pop out to see what it looks like on the other side of Ontario Street.

Perhaps that is the real crime. The dilution of cool from a place where a coffee doesn't come in the form of an espresso, but rather a drink that is an express-on-the-go.