Country Style, formerly Country Style Donuts, is a chain of coffee shops operating primarily in the Canadian province of Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 (where it ranks 2nd among coffee and donut chains), which serves donuts, soup

Soup

Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...

, sandwiches

Sandwiches

"Sandwiches" is a song by American electronic band Detroit Grand Pubahs. It reached number 29 in the Hot Dance Club Songs chart.- Track listing :...

, salads, and coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

. The chain is based in Richmond Hill, Ontario

Richmond Hill, Ontario

Richmond Hill is a town located in Southern Ontario, Canada in the central portion of York Region, Ontario. It is part of the Greater Toronto Area, being located about halfway between Toronto and Lake Simcoe...

.

Organization

In January 2006, there were 120 "traditional" locations in Ontario. There are over 420 "non-traditional" locations embedded in other stores such as gas stations, convenience stores, arenas and movie theatres. Over 70% of customer purchases in 2001 were coffee. In addition, there are 29 retail bakeries operating under the Buns Master name. Buns Master Bakery Systems Inc. is a 100% owned subsidiary. In total, Country Style has over 500 locations in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick under the Country Style name.

History

Country Style has been in business since 1963 when it opened its first location in Toronto. Donut stores only accounted for about 17% of donut sales in Canada at that time so there was still a lot of room for growth (most were sold at supermarkets in bulk). Country Style experienced a lot of growth early on, opening 100 stores in the first 15–20 years of existence. It had 50 outlets in 1974 when it was the leading coffee and donut establishment in Canada above Tim Hortons (which passed it two years later). It began to expand into Western Canada

Western Canada

Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces and commonly as the West, is a region of Canada that includes the four provinces west of the province of Ontario.- Provinces :...

 in the 1970s (including Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

 and Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

) and the East in the early 1980s. Poor results caused the franchise to withdraw from these regions: locations in Alberta were the only ones to survive into the 1990s, while in the East, it was ones in Nova Scotia and PEI.

By 2001, Country Style had been forced to close a quarter of its stores due to decreasing market share in an increasingly competitive Canadian market. Since then, it has opened many new stores and currently ranks third behind Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons Inc. is a Canadian fast casual restaurant known for its coffee and doughnuts. It is also Canada's largest fast food service with over 3000 stores nationwide. It was founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, by Canadian hockey player Tim Horton and Jim Charade, after an initial venture in...

 and Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

 in the Canadian coffee market.

In the mid-1990s the Country Style logo

Logo

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

 was changed to use a font similar to Palatino

Palatino

Palatino is the name of a large typeface family that began as an old style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf initially released in 1948 by the Linotype foundry.In 1999, Zapf revised Palatino for Linotype and Microsoft, called Palatino Linotype...

 instead of its former handwriting font.

In 2006, Country Style changed its image to a more upscale style: "Country Style Bistro Deli". The new image includes a new logo, a new website, and an enhanced branded deli

Delicatessen

Delicatessen is a term meaning "delicacies" or "fine foods". The word entered English via German,with the old German spelling , plural of Delikatesse "delicacy", ultimately from Latin delicatus....

 menu that will be phased into all stores. The logo still uses the Palatino style font and will also be phased into all stores. New stores will feature more modern design features, somewhat similar to Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

, and provides wide range of sandwiches, soups, wraps and salads. In 2009, the brand rights to Country Style, used at 488 locations, were purchased by MTY Food Group

MTY Food Group

MTY Food Group is a Canadian franchisor and operator of numerous quick service restaurants operating under 26 brand names, some of them through wholly owned subsidiaries...

 of Montreal for $14.6 million in cash and debt.

Charity work

In April 2003, Country Style partnered with the Make a Wish Foundation as its corporate charity of choice. Since then, Country Style and its franchisees have raised in excess of a quarter of a million dollars for the foundation.