PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops says it has closed 36 restaurants and will shut down 18 kiosks in New England, with two in Maine set to shut, neither one in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

A spokesman for the company said Thursday that restaurants in Westbrook and Windham would stop doing business. Two others would be opening in Maine: one in Lincoln and one in Madawaska. The total number of restaurants in Maine would remain at 30.

The Oakville, Ontario-based company announced Wednesday it would close all its locations in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. More than two dozen locations remain in Maine, now the only New England state where the company is operating..

Tim Hortons says it has lost $4.4 million this year on those locations, and is focusing instead on markets elsewhere in the Northeast and Midwest.

The company moved into southeastern New England in 2004 when it paid nearly $42 million for 42 coffee shops belonging to the Rhode Island-based Bess Eaton chain of coffee shops. It previously closed about 15 of those shops in 2008.

Spokesman David Morelli said Thursday the company doesn’t know how many people are losing their jobs because they were employed by the local store operators.

Tim Hortons is left with 567 locations in the United States and plans to open 300 more stores by 2013. It has 3,100 locations in Canada.

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