TORONTO — Tim Hortons has closed some restaurants in New York and Maine.
In a brief statement, the company said it shut down the stores as part of a review of how they were performing.
It did not say how many stores were closed.
News reports in the U.S. say the closures were abrupt, with employees saying they were not given any notice and in some cases diners were kicked out of restaurants and the lights turned off in the middle of the day.
The move comes weeks after leadership at Tim Hortons spoke about expanding the company's presence south of the border.
In October, Tim Hortons announced a partnership with U.S. developer Seven Invest to open more than 150 Tim Hortons coffee shops in the Cincinnati area over the next decade.
The chief executive of Restaurant Brands (TSX:QSR), which owns Burger King and bought Tim Hortons last year, said the expansion plan was "the first of many such agreements" in the pipeline for the Tim Hortons brand as it looked to expand internationally.
The U.S. market has historically delivered mixed results for Tim Hortons.
In 2010, the company pulled out of the northeastern U.S. — the first time in its history that it did so —closing stores in Providence, R.I., and Hartford, Conn., where average sales volumes were about half of those in other U.S. markets, the company said at the time.
