Welcome to BigScreenBiz.com

I just bought a used Slush Puppie machine at E-bay.
Probably should have asked before I bought it, but what are people thinking about Slushies? The last topic about it, is a couple of years old. Have things changed? What cup sizes are selling them in? Special cups? What prize?
Any information is appreciated.

Jay

We sell slushy's using a Taylor FCB ( Frozen Carbonated Beverage ) machine with the added Flavor Burst system. I sell 16oz, 24oz and 32oz sizes. The medium and smalls sell the best. With the flavor burst I can sell eight different flavors from one barrel. You can also combine up to 3 flavors in one drink. I had sold these from one barrel and Frozen Pepsi or Mt Dew from the other barrel. I was always overselling the flavor burst side so this January we converted the other barrel to flavor burst too and add some new flavors while repeating the top sellers of Blue Raspberry and Cherry. This has worked well for us since we can balance the load some we have not sold out yet. Maybe Toy Story 3 will sell the machine out but I hope it keeps up.

I charge .25 more for these drinks than soda. I also have options on my combo’s to upgrade to a slushy. I also offer it as an upgrade for a kids tray. The kids tray upgrade sells a lot of slushy’s.

For those who have looked at these machines, yes this is a very expensive machine. It nets way more than my previous plain slushy machine by several times. ( a lot more ) I have it on a 3 year lease with the option to buy for a penny at the end of the lease. After next Feb, when the lease is up, it will almost double its contribution to the bottom line when I have no lease payments. I also took the option of having repair and maintenance put into the price of the syrup. These machines have regular PM done and all service except after hours is covered. This has been a good plan for since I have had the carbonator just blow on it ( probably due to water pressure issues after a big fire a block away ) the compressor had issues this spring so they just put a new one in etc. Every year the supplier has a winter sale on syrup, so I stock up at the lower price since the stuff has expatriation dates of more than a year out.

To answer your question, yes I would add a slushy machine to any theatre. Cherry and Blue Raspberry sell the best with green apple following. Your local distributor will be able to tell you what flavors sell best in your area.

We have an old Stoelting Bros Slush Puppy machine. We bought it refurbished from a local supplier in 2005 on a package deal with syrup, slush base and cups so that when the stock was used up the machine was paid for. It was paid for in a few months. Since then it has worked perfectly with no maintenance issues. We love it and made a lot of money with it at our previous theater. We do not have the auto fill option so we keep extra slush base in our refrigerator to pour in whenever it gets low. We got the extra racks to hold extra syrup flavors so that we have a choice of 11 flavors plus the shocker which makes everything sour - so 22 flavors in all. Blue raspberry and Cherry are still the best sellers but I personally love Watermelon and Lemon lime. Make sure that you get the Owned Machine price for slush base from your supplier. The difference in price between owned and leased machines is eye popping. We currently sell ours for .25 more than the same size pop but offer it in only a 22 oz size. At our previous theater we got a premium dollar extra over a 22 oz pop and sold a lot of them.

Our current theater already had an ICEE machine installed. It sells a lot more than the Slush Puppy machine sitting next to it but I would really love to get rid of the ICEE. ICEE are carbonated while Slush Puppies are not.Customers like the carbonation but we don't love the exploding ICEE or the defrosting period. ICEEs personally make me sick but I can't argue with the sales. The only good point about having the machine is that it alerts you (and everyone else in the lobby) when the CO2 level gets too low in your pop system. If the machine needs to be repaired they must empty out all the syrup costing you a lot of money on a $175 box of syrup. It needs to be repaired a lot! So.... my advice is to stay with the slush puppie machine and make yourself and your customers happy. Shop around for your slush base and flavors carefully to get the best price and flavor - not all slush base tastes the same.

The problems with this product .... no matter what make or manufacturer ... is that the slushie stuff is a disaster on seat fabrics and almost impossible to clean off.

We have not had a clean up issue. (Yet) I use a plastic cup with a dome lid and a spoon straw so maybe that helps. I don't often find any cups with product left in it when I pick up they are all empty.

A word on costs.
I like to follow this rule "sometimes Free is not Cheap enough".

We had an old slushy machine that cost almost nothing to get and the syrup was very cheap. It started to fail and was too old to repair.

Even though the new machine was expensive it nets several times more what the old machine grossed. I may be paying more but I am netting a lot more in the end. So that makes me very happy.

I've looked into frozen drink options several times over the years,
but I've never got past the impression that frozen drink sales will steal sales from soft drink sales.

Do you all find this the case?

How does the profit on a Slush Puppy compare to the profit on a soft drink?

I sell a slush at my theater. I used to use Pepsi's Polar shock however their prices are very high for a box of syrup. Now we just use a basic slush machine and purchase sno-cone syrups dilute them and let them slush over in the machine. It works great and the price is super cheap.

We sell only one size. A 20oz clear cup for $3.75 which is the same price as our large pop. I even allow it to be substituted in our combo. We offer refill for $1.

Generally we sell Blue Raspberry and Cherry Red. Sometimes we do orange or grape. I have never had any huge spilling problems (nothing worse than a spilled pop)

I bought used a Slush Puppie machine from our popcorn/candy service. We sell the 16 oz for 1.89. We sell a lot at our drive-in. I'd like to get a recipe for the base?

Keweler wrote:
Slush sells very well and many companies offer programs and product. I'm sure you are saying "Slush Puppie" in the generic sense because ICEE protects the Slush Puppie trademark.
Rio Syrup makes a great base and offers many flavors. They sell directly to movie theatres. www.riosyrup.com/
Repairing slush machines can be expensive. You might consider a lease via ICEE or Taylor, for example.
Great selling product, good luck.
Allen D