Tim Hortons is spending about $62 million in Alberta this year. Seventeen brand-new restaurants. Forty-nine renovations. Sixty-six projects in a single construction season, all of them due to be finished before the year is out.
It is now logged in Alberta''s Major Projects Registry, the provincial database that tracks pipelines, hospitals and transit lines. A coffee chain does not usually show up there. This one is big enough to qualify.
Alberta is getting a bigger slice than its size explains
Nationally, Tim Hortons and its restaurant owners are putting $400 million into 480 projects, 80 new builds and 400 renovations. Restaurant owners are covering $270 million of that themselves and head office is adding $130 million.
Alberta is taking 17 of the 80 new restaurants. That is 21 per cent of every new Tim Hortons going up in Canada this year, in a province with roughly 12 per cent of the country''s population. Alberta ranks second only to Ontario for new builds, and Ontario has more than three times the people.
The same pattern shows up if you measure against the existing footprint. Alberta has around 391 Tim Hortons. Sixty-six projects means roughly one in six Alberta locations is being rebuilt or replaced this year. Ontario has about 1,822 locations and 214 projects, closer to one in nine. Alberta''s Tim Hortons are being refreshed faster than Ontario''s.
Every Alberta community getting a NEW Tim Hortons
Tim Hortons named eight communities for the 17 new builds:
Bon Accord
Calgary
Canmore
Edmonton
Fort Saskatchewan
Grande Prairie
Nisku
Spruce Grove
Eight communities, 17 restaurants. The difference is Calgary and Edmonton, which are absorbing most of the remainder between them. Tim Hortons has not released the specific street addresses for the big-city builds.
Every Alberta community getting a RENOVATION
Nineteen communities are named across the 49 renovations:
Beaumont
Black Diamond
Brooks
Calgary
Cold Lake
Didsbury
Edmonton
Fort McMurray
Grande Prairie
High River
Langdon
Lethbridge
Medicine Hat
Red Deer
Rocky Mountain House
Rocky View County
Slave Lake
St. Albert
Taber
Three communities appear on both lists. Calgary, Edmonton and Grande Prairie are each getting new restaurants and renovations to existing ones.
One naming note worth flagging: the release says Black Diamond, but Black Diamond has not been its own town since January 2023, when it amalgamated with Turner Valley to form Diamond Valley. If you live there, that is your Tim Hortons on the list.
The addresses confirmed so far
Most of the 66 sites have not been made public. These have:
Red Deer, 4217 50th Ave. — renovation
Red Deer, 5111 22nd St. — renovation
Rocky Mountain House — renovation of the town''s original location, plus parking lot work. Owner Tanya Doucette told the Red Deer Advocate the work was slated to begin in September: "We''re excited to make that investment, and to bring an updated restaurant, and parking lot improvements."
Lloydminster, 75 Ave. — a new build on the corridor where the city''s first Costco is under construction. Lloydminster is not in the press release''s community list, but it is the location the province''s Major Projects Registry pins the file to, and the Meridian Source reported the site locally. We covered that one separately: Tim Hortons is opening a brand new location in Lloydminster next to the incoming Costco.
Read the new-build list again. It is a highway map.
Strip out Calgary and Edmonton and look at what is left: Bon Accord on Highway 28. Nisku on the QEII beside the Edmonton International Airport. Spruce Grove on the Yellowhead. Fort Saskatchewan in the Industrial Heartland. Canmore on the Trans-Canada. Grande Prairie on Highway 43.
Every single one sits on a major Alberta traffic corridor. None of them is a downtown infill play. This is a bet on drive-thru volume from commuters, truckers, shift workers and tourists, not on walk-in urban customers.
The company''s own numbers explain why. On Restaurant Brands International''s second-quarter earnings call in August, management said new standard drive-thru restaurants are paying back their construction cost in under three years, which they called one of the strongest returns in the industry. Alberta, with the country''s fastest interprovincial migration and a population that passed five million in April, is where those economics work hardest.
The Bon Accord outlier
Bon Accord had 1,461 residents at the last census. It is best known for being the first community in Canada to be certified an International Dark Sky Community, back in 2015.
A town that small landing one of 80 new Tim Hortons in the entire country is unusual, and it makes sense only through the corridor lens. Bon Accord sits on Highway 28, the route between Edmonton and the Lakeland, and it is 40 kilometres from downtown Edmonton. The restaurant is not being built for 1,461 people. It is being built for everyone driving past them.
What actually changes inside
The renovation spec is the same across the country:
Brighter lighting and a redesigned dining room layout
A clearer digital ordering and mobile pickup area, because a growing share of orders now come through the app or a kiosk rather than the till
A more prominent baked goods showcase
Upgraded kitchen equipment, including new fountain systems being rolled out across Canada to support cold drinks
Canadian heritage artwork and décor
The practical promise is speed. Tim Hortons says the reworked layouts are meant to make service faster and orders more accurate, which is a quiet admission about where the current stores fall short.
If yours is on the renovation list, expect it to close
This is the part that will affect the most Albertans and the part nobody put in a press release. A renovation of this scope means the restaurant shuts.
Westlock is the useful precedent. Its Tim Hortons, on Highway 18 between the Boston Pizza and the Ramada, closed on September 15, 2025 for a full renovation and reopened on October 15 — one month, near enough to the day. Through the whole closure the operator parked a Tim Hortons food truck with a working drive-thru in the lot so the town was not cut off from its coffee.
That is the realistic template for the 49 Alberta stores being renovated in 2026: roughly four weeks dark, possibly a trailer in the parking lot, and no province-wide schedule announced. Individual owners are giving notice locally, usually a couple of weeks out on the store''s own Facebook page. If your location is your morning routine, that page is the only place the date will appear.
Why Tim Hortons is spending now
The timing is not a victory lap. Tim Hortons Canada''s comparable sales rose 0.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, down from 3.6 per cent in the same quarter a year earlier. Chief executive Joshua Kobza told analysts the brand held its lead in coffee, breakfast and baked goods but that the marketing calendar "didn''t drive growth we''ve come to expect."
Flat sales at 4,000 existing restaurants leave two levers: open more restaurants, and make the existing ones convert better. This $400 million pulls both at once. The company is planning about 80 gross openings in Canada this year, up from more than 50 last year.
There is competitive pressure too. Dunkin'' has been circling a Canadian return, something we looked at earlier this year, and a wave of tired stores would be an opening for anyone.
The Canadian-sourcing pitch, and its limits
Tim Hortons is leaning hard on where the money goes. Custom furniture is handcrafted in Montréal from 100 per cent Canadian-sourced maple. Signage is designed, fabricated and installed by Canadian suppliers. Artwork comes from Canadian artists and makers. Construction materials are bought through Canadian-owned businesses and mostly manufactured domestically.
"Tim Hortons was built in Canada by Canadians, and we are proud to continue investing in Canada to give our guests beautiful, modern restaurants to enjoy," said Axel Schwan, president of Tim Hortons.
The work itself flows to local trades — electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons, painters, tilers, roofers, mechanical firms and general contractors. Worth noting, though: when the Daily Commercial News asked head office to name its main contractors and explain how suppliers were selected, it did not get a response. The Canadian-content claim is the company''s, and it has not been independently itemised.
What it means for jobs
Seventeen new restaurants in Alberta means 17 new crews, on top of the construction work. Tim Hortons has not published a hiring target for the province, and no employment figure appears in the release.
For context on scale, the chain posted roughly 10,000 summer jobs nationally this year, which we wrote about against Alberta''s youth unemployment numbers. New builds typically staff up four to six weeks before opening, and postings go on the Tim Hortons careers site and Indeed under the individual restaurant owner''s name rather than the corporate account.
What is still unknown
The exact addresses of the Calgary and Edmonton new builds, which account for most of the 17
Which of the 49 renovations close when — no provincial schedule exists
Opening dates for any of the new restaurants
Whether all 66 projects finish inside 2026 as planned; the Major Projects Registry still lists the file as "Proposed"
We will update this page as addresses and dates are confirmed.
SOURCES:
Tim Hortons Alberta news release, May 22, 2026 (newswire.ca)
Tim Hortons national news release, May 22, 2026 (newswire.ca)
Alberta Major Projects Registry, "Tim Hortons Expansion" (majorprojects.alberta.ca)
Red Deer Advocate, May 22, 2026
Town and Country Today (Westlock), September and October 2025
Meridian Source, May 28, 2026
Restaurant Brands International Q2 2026 earnings call, August 2026
Daily Commercial News / ConstructConnect, June 2026
Statistics Canada population estimates, April 1, 2026
ScrapeHero Tim Hortons location counts, March 10, 2026
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