On Aug. 8, 1995, American fast food chain Wendy's has bought Canada's number 1 doughnut chain, Tim Hortons, for $400 million Cdn (not $580 million as heard in the clip). The friendly merger had been anticipated ever since a Wendy's and a Tim Hortons franchise set up shop under one roof in Montague, P.E.I., in 1992. The unlikely marriage was the brainchild of Danny Murphy, referred to as one of P.E.I.'s fast food kingpins in this radio report.

It was at the Montague "combo store" opening that the two owners, Dave Thomas of Wendy's and Ron Joyce of Tim Hortons, first met. The two men would go on to become good friends.

• The first Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut shop opened in Hamilton, Ont., in 1964. The business was founded and named after Tim Horton, a hockey player with the National Hockey League from 1949 until his death in a car accident in 1974.
• Ron Joyce, a former Hamilton police constable who became Horton's partner in 1967, took over after Horton's death. Joyce bought out the Horton family to become the sole owner of Tim Hortons.

• Tim Hortons is currently the largest coffee and doughnut chain in Canada with over 2,610 shops. Tim Hortons is the largest fast food operator in Canada, with double the number of outlets of Macdonald's. There are over 290 Tim Hortons in the U.S. and one in Kandahar, serving Canadian troops in Afghanistan (July 2006).

• In late 2005, Wendy's began selling shares in Tim Hortons operations. This was completed in March 2006. Wendy's cited increased competition between the two chains and Tim's increasing self-sufficiency as reasons for its decision.
• Wendy's was founded by Dave Thomas and Robert Barney in 1969. It is named after Thomas's then eight-year-old daughter, Melinda, whose nickname was Wendy.

• The first Wendy's restaurant opened on Nov. 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. The group quickly grew to over 3,000 stores by 1985. In 1989, Wendy's founder Thomas came out of retirement to make commercials for Wendy's and successfully rebuild the struggling franchise. Dave Thomas died on Jan. 8, 2002.

• In 2005, Wendy's received some negative press in what became to be the "chili hoax." American Anna Ayala claimed to have found an amputated human finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili. It was later discovered that the finger belonged to a colleague of Ayala's husband who had lost it in an industrial accident in December 2004. Ayala pleaded guilty to the charge of grand larceny in 2005 and was sentenced to nine years in prison. Her husband, who supplied the finger, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Medium: Radio
Program: The Ten O’Clock News
Broadcast Date: Aug. 10, 1995
Reporter: Kathy Large
Guest(s): Danny Murphy
Duration: 2:10