http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/world/story/3562792p-4116383c.html
Rolling up the rim in Afghanistan
Tim Hortons opening at Kandahar airport
Fri Jun 23 2006
By Matthew Fisher
Matthew Fisher / CanWest news service
Warrant Officer Tim Turner looks forward to coffee and a toasted bagel in Kandahar.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A pair of Illyushin-76 aircraft landed with an unlikely cargo of precious foodstuffs at one of the world's busiest military airfields early yesterday.
Stuffed inside four refrigerated sea containers in the bellies of the huge Soviet-era transport aircraft were tonnes of dough chilled to exactly --10 C. The first batch of batter for Tim Hortons donuts and bagels had finally arrived at this tiny Canadian outpost at Kandahar Airfield after a 10,000-kilometre over the North Pole flight from the land of the "double-double."
A team of six startup experts from Tim Hortons in Canada arrives at this dusty military outpost this weekend to help train a team of 15 Canadians especially hired by the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency to run the franchise.
The first coffee has already been test brewed in Tim's special coffee machines. If all goes according to plan, the first donuts should be cooked early next week.
A gala ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for Canada Day with Brig.-Gen. David Fraser of Edmonton presiding. Many of the 2,300 Canadians who are not out on frontline combat duty or sentry duty that day are expected to attend.
For several days, Canadian troops have been eyeing the Tim Hortons kiosk, set up on in a trailer on the base boardwalk alongside such U.S. fast food giants as Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway.
"It's going to be a taste of Canada," said Warrant Officer Tim Turner of Edmonton. "It's what we have been talking about all the time."
Cpl. Jarrit Turnell of Edmonton joked that it would not only be "a great morale boost for the boys. Now the OC's will always know where to find us."
The plan is for Tim's to be open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. The menu offered in the Afghan desert will be somewhat restricted -- coffee, iced cappucino, bagels, muffins and seven kinds of donuts, but no chili, soup or sandwiches.
-- CanWest News Service