Customers react to pizza as a new menu item at Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons launches pizza CTV’s Heather Senoran hears from customers and a marketing expert.

Pizza and coffee wasn’t what Jeet Shergill was expecting to order on his lunch break, but he saw the posters of the new menu item at Tim Hortons and decided to give it a shot.

“It’s got good flavour to it,” he said, after taking his first bite.

Shergill is a regular customer at the King Street Tim Hortons location in Kitchener. He said the best part about the flatbread pizza was how fast it was ready.

“Just the convenience. It's quick and you get it right at lunch,” Shergill said.

According to the fast food company, with the new ovens at Tim Hortons locations across the country, the flatbread pizza can be ready in about 65 seconds.

The flatbread bases are shipped to the store but the rest of the pizza is made to order.

The pizzas cost $6.99 for just cheese and $7.99 for the other varieties which include bacon, chicken parmesan, and pepperoni.

“Just to see that they have four different flavors, I can pick my favorite to find out which one I like the most. But the chicken one, I've got my eyes on,” said Kenny Linseman, a regular customer.

Linseman said he and his coworkers said seeing pizza on the menu was shocking but in a good way.

“I was surprised but I am excited to try it,” he said.

Tim Hortons has been dominating the breakfast scene for years but hopes to get more customers in the afternoons and evenings.

“You start to see these companies all sort of drift into the same market space and that's where you get the heightened competition,” said Brad Davis, an associate professor of marketing at the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics.

Marketing experts said pizza is an obvious choice for a new menu item. Restaurants Canada named pizza the country’s sixth-most ordered item last year.

“It's pretty much a staple element in our North American diet,” Davis said.

Some are skeptical and think that Tim Hortons is straying too far from the staple items we are used to.

“I think they're maybe going a little far with stuff now. I think they should just stick to what they're known for kind of thing,” said one customer. “It’s a bit weird.”

Davis looked online to gage reaction.

“I know there are people online making jokes about whether it's going to taste like donuts or going to be cream filled pizza,” laughed Davis.

The launch follows a two year pilot at some Tim Hortons locations across the country. Officials told CTV News that this time around, the pizza will not just be a ‘limited time only’ product and is here to stay.