'where’s the melt?' tim hortons customers complain of unmelted grilled cheese sandwiches
3 minute read
"my grilled cheese melt is not very grilled... or melted," faytalrush posted to r/timhortons of their sandwich, left, which is visibly less melted than the tim hortons handout image. photos by faytalrush/tim hortons
the return of tim hortons’ grilled cheese has some canadians asking, “where’s the melt?” customers are taking their complaints of cold cheese slices to social media. one tiktok user even resorted to grilling their tim hortons sandwich at home, posting, “are you really making me melt my own damn cheese?”
tim hortons relaunched its grilled cheese and bacon melts at restaurants across canada on may 27, starting at $5.79, saying the comeback was due to popular demand.
“tims fans are passionate about their favourite menu items, and we heard loud and clear how much they missed melts,” matthew feaver, head of innovation for tim hortons, said in a statement announcing the return.
“we’re so excited to give our guests what they’ve asked for by bringing back our cheese melt and bacon melt — there’s something about grilled bread and gooey, melted cheese that makes for a craveable, comforting meal.”
anticipation was high, but disappointed customers have noted the lack of “gooey, melted cheese.”
reddit user faytalrush posted to the tim hortons subreddit, “my grilled cheese melt is not very grilled… or melted,” alongside a photo of four intact cheese slices sandwiched in white bread.
“i got real excited for what?” posted tiktok user carrie hoeble. “they gave me cold cheese on hot bread. the cheese is cold. they didn’t even try.”
tim hortons has sold more than 400,000 melts since they relaunched last week, a “very large majority” of which were made according to their standards, the restaurant chain said via email to national post. “what makes a melt great is the grilled bread and melted cheese — we accept the feedback that we haven’t gotten it 100 per cent right, so are working with tims restaurant owners who are doubling down on training to ensure guests are served a great melt every time — whether in our drive-thru or at the restaurant counter. we encourage guests to contact our guest services team if they have feedback to share.”
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in response to hoeble’s video, tiktokers who report being former tim hortons employees offered a possible explanation for the unmelted cheese: time pressures at drive-thrus.
“my store literally told us to speed up making them in order to make times so we didn’t get in trouble by corporate. so, i’m guessing that’s what happened here,” said a user going by the handle desertthorns, who said they worked for the restaurant chain when the melts were originally launched.
“people are ordering them en masse and there is no time to cook them properly,” said another user going by the handle sleeplessimp. “these sandwiches can take 2-4 minutes to fully cook/melt on the panini press. if you order them through the drive through both you and the worker are screwed. corporate wants you through the dt in thirty seconds max. when in store most people don’t want to wait 2-4 minutes on a sandwich. if the grill gets overloaded it can’t heat properly causing the same issue.”
at least one customer posted a video of their sandwich showing the desired cheese pull to incredulous comments. “this is honestly the only one i’ve seen done right,” a tiktoker commented. “she must be like the golden ticket winner at willy wonka,” posted another.
the grilled cheese relaunch came on the heels of tim hortons’ commitment to local hiring. on may 25, the chain announced a national campaign to hire 10,000 locals to staff its restaurants, including 80 new locations opening this year. tim hortons said in a statement that its reliance on the temporary foreign worker program has “declined steadily since 2024,” with roughly 4,000 of 110,000 employees (3.6 per cent of all restaurant roles) hired through the program.
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