A cache to crow about Collector feathers nest with just about anything related to Robin’s Donuts By: David Sanderson Posted: 4:10 PM CDT Friday, May. 29, 2026

Robin’s Donuts celebrated 50 years in business last fall and to mark that milestone, a local javaphile who keeps anything and everything associated with the Canadian chain travelled to Thunder Bay, Ont., where Robin’s poured its first cuppa joe in September 1975.

By his own admission, Ronald George Moore, 56, received his fair share of raised eyebrows from Robin’s employees, when he let them know the purpose of his visit.

“There are six locations there including a 24-hour one inside a hospital (Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre) and I hit ’em all,” Moore says, seated in a second-storey home office he refers to as the “Robin’s nest,” for all of the Robin’s-related paraphernalia lining the walls and shelves.

“I’d be telling the workers I was from Winnipeg and how excited I was to be there for Robin’s anniversary. They were polite enough, but in their head I’m sure a few of them were going, ‘OK, buddy, let’s take it down a notch.’”

The way Moore understands the story, Robin’s co-founders Harvey Cardwell and George Spicer intended to dub their yet-to-open operation Superior Donuts for Lake Superior, the famous body of water bordering their hometown.

One morning, as they were brainstorming at Cardwell’s place, they spotted a robin foraging for worms in the backyard. Equating robins with daybreak, and daybreak with coffee, they immediately changed tack by naming their pending café for the red-breasted bird, instead.

(At one point Robin’s, now owned by Chairman’s Brand Corporation, had close to 250 outlets spread across the country, but that number is presently down to 160 or so.)

Moore’s personal association with Robin’s began when he was a grade schooler. He grew up in Fort Richmond and every Sunday following church, his family would stop at a Robin’s outlet on Pembina Highway, a few blocks from their house.

Moore and his two younger sisters would split a box of Robin’s eggs — Robin’s take on Tim Hortons’ Timbits — while their parents relaxed over coffee.

Moore, a courier driver, remained a loyal customer into his adulthood.

Fifteen years ago, he purchased a Robin’s travel mug that reminded him of the sort his father used to keep in a dash-mounted holder in his car.

One portable cup turned into two, two became four and before you could say “double-double,” he had filled an entire shelving unit with storebought cups and mugs bearing an image of the chain’s cartoon-bird mascot.

Next, he began netting prizes associated with Robin’s then-annual Sip to Win promotions, which rewarded customers with food and beverage packages, sure, but also crested blankets, T-shirts, socks… even miniature rolling pins.

He was surprised by the wide range of items available, but the turning point, collecting-wise, came when his fiancée uncovered a functioning neon Robin’s sign, which she had customized to reflect the name of his podcast, Manitoba Moneyshot, which highlights Winnipeg artists, musicians and community leaders, especially from his North Point Douglas neighbourhood.

“After attaching it to the wall I was like, OK, let’s see how much I can grow this hobby.”

On a near-weekly basis, Moore searches the internet for what’s newly available, via online markets or through the company itself.

Often, merchandise in one part of the country differs from that in another, so whenever he can, he enlists friends vacationing in, say, the Maritimes or southern Ontario to pick up this or that for him, while they’re away.

Recently, for example, a buddy of his living in Vancouver let him know he had spotted a Robin’s-branded coffee maker in a thrift store, and that he’d gladly throw it in his suitcase the next time he visits Winnipeg.

“I’m also not above looking in dumpsters behind a Robin’s to see if they’re throwing away advertising material.”

“I’m also not above looking in dumpsters behind a Robin’s to see if they’re throwing away advertising material for promotions that have ended,” says Moore, who collected comic books as a kid and has always enjoyed what he calls the thrill of the hunt.

“Don’t get me wrong — I’m not jumping in — but if I can reach something from where I’m standing on the sidewalk, I’m fine taking it home, cleaning it up and finding a suitable place to display it.”

He’s even informed store workers, many of whom he’s gotten to know on a first-name basis, that if they have any old uniforms or caps they no longer require, he’ll take those off their hands, too.

Further to that, Moore still has nightmares about the time an employee told him he was in her thoughts a few days earlier, when she noticed her manager tossing out a life-size Robin’s mascot costume that had seen better days.

“I was like ‘What? Why didn’t you set it aside?’ Seriously, I’d rather not have known, I was so disappointed.”

While he is fond of everything he’s amassed thus far — even nondescript paper napkins and takeout bags — there are a few oddball pieces he’s particularly proud of.

Those include a Robin’s liquor decanter, won by its previous owner at a golf tournament, and a set of bendable action figures that depict the Robin’s character playing sports such as hockey and baseball.

He’s also pleased to show off a faux stained-glass vinyl cut-out that once fit over a skylight window at a since-closed Robin’s on St. Mary’s Road, near Nelson McIntyre Collegiate.

The colourful specimen was a gift from a construction worker who, when that location was being gutted to pave the way for a new Starbucks, was invited to bring home anything that caught his eye.

“And as much as I’ve been tempted to, I’ve never taken a single thing out of a Robin’s without asking if it was OK,” he stresses.

“I can’t speak for people on eBay who are selling those orange food trays or soup bowls that they likely slipped into a backpack when nobody was looking, but everything I have is 100 per cent legit.”

“As much as I’ve been tempted to, I’ve never taken a single thing out of a Robin’s without asking if it was OK.”

Million-dollar question: Wouldn’t it be much easier to add to his stockpile if he simply dusted off his resumé and dropped it off at one of the five Robin’s locations in Winnipeg?

That might be worth considering when he retires from his current position, he says with a wink, adding he is also tossing around the idea of penning a definitive book on Robin’s collectibles.

“The crazy thing was, the Robin’s in Gimli changed hands two years ago. I absolutely love Gimli and had I known it was for sale, I definitely would have looked into it.”

Back to his Thunder Bay trip; thanks to a former Robin’s executive who willingly toured him and his fiancée around — she’s from Thunder Bay so he didn’t have to twist her arm to accompany him, he chuckles — the father of two children from a previous relationship returned to Winnipeg with a slew of fresh treasures for his hoard.

“He had some mementoes he’d hung onto through the years that he graciously turned over,” says Moore, whose standard coffee order is one cream and half a sugar.

“What I really wanted, mind you, was a giant Robin’s sign attached to a pole, close to where the original location stood. I jotted down the number of the existing business even though I don’t know how I’d ever get (the sign) down, or where I’d put it if I did.

“But that would be a problem for another day, right?”

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