It’s lunch hour at a busy uptown Toronto coffee shop. The eager staff serve up lattes and deli-style sandwiches at the counter, while young professionals lounge in green leather chairs by the fireplace, Country Style takeout cups in hand.
Hold the foam… Country Style?
Indeed. The Richmond Hill, Ont.-based coffee chain is going upscale, with a new menu, logo and atmosphere. “We felt it was time the brand became a little more contemporary,” says Rita McParland, vice-president of marketing. “We wanted to be more reflective of our core business of coffee…we’re repositioning Country Style as a nice alternative to what’s out there.”
But one analyst calls the move “a last-ditch effort to survive.” Country Style went bankrupt in 2001, “then tried to reposition itself and catch up with Tim Hortons,” says Doug Fisher, president of food service consulting firm FHG International. “They added new menu items and new advertising and that did not help.”
Fisher thinks the rebranding will “make it look nicer, but the mistake is that [Country Style] will not appeal to the Starbucks customer with its lower quality product and cheaper prices, while at the same time, they may drive away the customers they have left.”
The competition in the coffee category is formidable. Tim Hortons owns 78% of the coffee and baked goods sector of quick-service restaurants, according to NPD Canada. But “anybody that serves coffee is our competition,” says McParland, including McDonald’s.
For its part, Country Style is trying to carve a new niche in the marketplace. “We won’t beat Tim Hortons on convenience… but we feel we can leapfrog [Tim’s] on image, feeling and service.” For instance, in focus groups, people said they get the feeling Tim Hortons is an “assembly line,” says McParland. “Because they’re busy, they’re generating car after car and they’ve lost a little bit of that human touch.”
As for Starbucks, “a lot of people don’t have that disposable income to afford that all the time… So we want to offer that feeling of quality and warmth, but maintain our value proposition.”
Interestingly, Country Style and Tim Hortons both opened their first stores in the early 1960s. Today, Country Style has 420 locations in Ontario compared to Tim Hortons’ more than 2,600 stores across Canada. And while the full house in Country Style’s uptown location is promising, surely the folks at head office are wondering what might have been.-WITH FILES FROM KRISTIN LAIRD
