Just wondering…I’m Ice Maker shopping. How big is good enough? We’ll have 30 seats, offer fountain pop with our delivery and I’m planning on using some 1/2 gallon containers for promos eventually.
Our installer was a good source of info on this. We had one picked, according to our salesman, and our installer bumped us up. He said without AC and having the big oven the smaller unit would really struggle to keep up – especially in the California summer heat. Tell him your seat count, where the machine is located in relation to other equipment, windows and doors, volume expected, etc.
Are you sure you want to sell fountain drinks with deliveries??? :shock:
I’m looking to do something a bit different, but a system that was used in my old hometown’s “Sweet Shop” that was really a neat delivery system, and quite profitable. They used a disposable carton for their soda sales…think a paper milk carton affair in nature. I’m looking into the carton prices still, and if it proves to be another of my stupid ideas…well I’ll just hang it on the wall with my other trophies… 
I do plan on doing a summertime “fill the jug” promo though and am currently pricing out some logo bearing “Thermos” type picnic jugs for that. I’m not set on delivering soda by the cup by any means though. I guess I tossed it into the mix to make sure I was sourcing a machine to cover my “max” usage.
Thanks for your heads up though!
JV
Ah yes, its much better to plan for max than to plan for min and find out later you need a bigger unit. Thats for sure.
But regardless, I would never order fountain drinks for delivery. Nor if I were a driver I would want to deliver them 
I agree. Bad Idea!
I disagree. We were going to do it for two reasons: 1) Much more profit and 2) We had chewable ice which is very popular here.
We were going to use bag carriers (hard to explain but basically it is a plastic bag pinched and sealed in the middle to create two separate areas so the drinks stay put). They would hang in the car with other cold items. I know, sounds scary. But we think it would work and set us apart from the competition.
There are many reasons why nobody else does it… I don’t know anyone that would order fountain drinks for delivery… Last thing I want in my drink it watered down soda from a hot car or any “extra” ingredients that don’t belong there.
As long as the cup is insulated, the drink freshly poured, and is iced, it will not be watered down or flat. When you have let a drink sit for ten minutes in a styrofoam cup, it is not watered down.
And regarding your “extra ingredients” remark, the same could be said of the pizza.
BTW, there are sandwich shops here who deliver fountain drinks.
True, I had a feeling you would say that after that comment, but with a pizza its a lot easier to see if its been tampered with vs. a spit enriched sody pop.
I dunno, obviously its in the eye of the beholder, just seems odd to me.
Dude, you sound like you have experience adulterating food with bodily fluids! :lol:
hahaha… nah, just paranoid!
I’m going to have to lean towards the “no fountain drink delivery” side on this. I know there’s probably some direct cost savings in doing fountain vs. bottles. But I think there are just too many variables that could make someone dissatisfied with fountain drink delivery (and overall experience with you). The biggies for me… the dilution and flat soda factors. I know it probably won’t be that diluted, but even a little is going to frazzle people. As for flat soda, it is usually a customer or employee that tells me that the soda is flat. I don’t monitor the CO2 gauge.
Here’s a fictitious scenario…So let’s say you’re in the middle of the Friday Night rush, you’re already running hour wait times. Your delivery with 3 large pizzas is ready. Oh wait, you need two sodas with that. Your driver goes to fill the two canisters with pop. Oh no, the cola is out. Go get another Bag N Box and replace it. You start filling… you notice there’s no bubbles. The CO2 is out too. Man this kind of stuff always seems to hit during rushes. How much did you save on that fountain soda?
2 Liter bottles are no brainers. The driver grabs and goes. There is no dilution factor. In fact, if there is any problem with the soda, the customer is likely going to disassociate your restaurant because it’s likely Pepsi or Coke’s fault. But what issues? The only gripe I ever get on sodas is that my driver forgot to take it… but that’s a whole nuther issue.
As soon as you get a customer call back and says… “my soda was flat, can you send your driver back out with a new one?”, you’ll probably wish you used 2 liter bottles.
Wait a minute Fanatic…do you mean to say that sometimes things go wrong in a pizza place?? :lol:
All good points…thanks for the input! That’s why I love this forum.
Back to the original topic…I would go with a larger size, after all the ice stops making when it is full. I also suggest buying an air cooled rather than water cooled. We have one of each, never really understood the difference but I do know about 2 months ago our water cooled sprung a leak and tripled our water bill in a matter of days.
Kris
The cooling type affects how the heat dissipates from the coils (condensor, I believe). Either through ambient air temp or circulating water temp. If you have air temps running in the 90’sF, the air-cooled ice machine will make less ise and work harder than a water-cooled that uses 75 to 80F water to cool the works.
I am aiming at buying the biggest one I can afford that is in range of my projected needs. I plan to grow my business rather than shrink it, so I don’t want to outgrow what I invest in.
If you think you are going to go with a water cooled machine, pay attention to the amount of water used for the condenser. All of the water cooled machines i’ve looked at, the water used for the condenser goes into the machine and then straight down the drain (when the machine is running).
i was told by my ice machine rep that the reason they use water cooling is because of the grease and flour that is airborne. If you were to put the machine a ways from the kitchen and whatnot, you should consider going air-cooled. I have mine sitting on our loading dock about 25 feet from our kitchen, no problems yet.
I used to have 2 ice machines that were both water cooled. listening to the sound of all that water running down the drain gets depressing. I went to a single, rather large ice machine and discovered 2 things: First, our water bill cut in half and i had more ice capable of being produced in a single day. Secondly, our bigger machine actually uses a little less electricity than our newest smaller machine did.
The degree of carbonation in a particular drink is a matter of taste and opinion.
Many years ago, a fairly large number of our clients tried to deliver fountain drinks. All eventually gave up as many buyers called back complaining that the drinks were not sufficiently carbonated and demanding redelivery.
George Mills