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I'm leaning toward the serve yourself idea but wonder about where to put the ice machine and how to provide ice to the self serving public. What do you do?

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Not an expert here but I know that I always see those pop machines that have the ice inside so that you just stick the cup under the head and push for as much or little ice as you want. Don't those machines make the ice too? I wouldn't want the customers sticking a scoop in the ice because I'm not sure I would want that myself after what I've seen from a health perspective. Can you imagine what you might find in the ice?

I have seen two styles. One has the ice machine built on top of the drink dispenser. The other has an ice bin on the top and is refilled using bucket's of ice from wherever the ice machine is located. This second one with the bin seems most popular with the fast food franchises around here. If you look at a Superior catalog they show the special ice buckets they sell.

Mike-
You have two options"
1: You can have an ice machine mounted on top of your soda machine, this unit will make ice, and drop it into a holding bin, then when your customers push the ice lever it will fall into their cup. It will automatically make the ice when its sensor tells it to.
2:Your soda machine will have a large "ice bin" on top of it. It works the same way as above, the customer pushes the ice lever and it falls into their cup. The only thing with this is you have an ice machine located somewhere else and fill the top of the bin with the ice using large buckets.

Pepsi or Coke, I'm sure will provide the soda machine, I doubt they will provide the ice machine for the top.

I would have an ice machine located away from the soda machine,that way, if you use ice for anything else in your stand, you can get it easily. The bins on top of the soda machines can hold lots of ice, so its not like your filling it every 10 minutes.

jeff

Pepsi provided us with all of our self-serve machines, they have a bin for the ice mounted on top of the unit, we fill them once daily, at one larger location we have 4 stations and have to fill 2 X on busy days.

As we begin to look for the remaining items to finish out the concessions area of our theatre, we're totally lost when it comes to deciding how big of an ice machine to purchase.

All of the machines we've looked at are rated with a "pounds per day capacity". How much ice are some of you going through in a night, and how big of a machine do you have?

We've seen names like, Scotsman, Manitowoc, etc... is one brand any beter than the another... if so why?

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Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Lebanon, Tennessee

Stardust Drive-In Theatre
Watertown, Tennessee

Barry,
We had a discussion about ice machines earlier in May so I found and bumped up the topic for you. I note that we didn't discuss very much how much ice is needed. Our new Scotsman flaker from Superior Products makes 400 lbs per day but would be severely pushed if we had more than one screen and had Spidey type sell outs all day. We planned to add a mate if we added on screens. However, we can handle sellout days by planning ahead and storing ice production from the weekdays in coolers. Flakers don't recover as fast as cubers, so you can get more ice faster from a cuber. See what others have to say about their machines.

Just so everyone knows, Pepsi will not work on the internals of your pop machine if you put an ice machine on top of it until you have someone remove the ice machine. It really isnt a big deal but it is an extra expense if your machine happens to break down. All that being said though, it sure is nice to not have to bring in buckets of ice and have more room taken up by a remotely located machine or ice freezer. We have a Scottsman 150lb/day ice machine mounted on top of our Pepsi machine. The Pepsi guy said that pop machines with ice mkaers built in were built for a while but they had too many problems and they no longer deal with them.

We have a Manitowoc Series 600. We are very happy with it. It has not let us down in the three years we have had it. It has not required service.




<I>Q600 Ice Cube Machine on an S-570 Ice Storage Bin
-Both Items Sold Separately </I>

Up to 690 lbs. (313 kgs.) daily ice production
Stackable, double daily ice production, 1,380 lbs. (626 kgs.)
Only 30" (76.2 cm) wide
Stainless steel exterior with the fit and finish of an appliance
Rugged, corrosion-free base
Patented cleaning and sanitizing technology
New batch water system delivers better ice cube formation
R-404A CFC-free refrigerant

http://www.manitowocice.com

[This message has been edited by Large (edited January 10, 2003).]

I think it's exactl;y what we ended up with. Quoted Superior and bought locally. Roars like a wind tunnel but sure makes ice.

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Michael Hurley
Impresario

DO YOU HAVE A COSTCO IN YOUR AREA CHECK OUT THE SODA MACHINES WITH ICE MAKER ON TOP THEY HAVE 3 OR MOR PER LOCATION HERE AND THEY JUST KEEP RUNNING ALL DAY LONG AS NEEDED NEVER RUNS OUT OF ICE

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The soda-ice machine tops are the same as an ice machine-bin arrangement. Instead of a storage bin they just put the ice maker on the top of the soda rig. We need ice for other stuff so we used the bin.

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Michael Hurley
Impresario

We have 2 new Manitowocs in our 6-screen first run theater. Who paid for them? Pepsi. Who installed them and repairs them? Pepsi. If not Pepsi, who would have paid for them? Coke. Pepsi and Coke really compete for an exclusive presence in a movie theater. Take advantage!

I agree. You shouldn't have to pay for drink equipment. Sometimes it takes a few calls; sometimes it takes pitting coke against Pepsi (or vice versa).