This is topic Who sells those frozen coffee machines? in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 04-02-2001, 03:13 AM:
I am opening up a new theater and want to find out who sells those frozen coffee smoothee machines? If anyone knows who please let me know...
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 04-02-2001, 11:58 AM:
They are officialy called Granita machines. We got ours for free from the Icee company in order to sell their product. Their product cost is sufficiantly high to pay off the cost of the machine. We sell Strawberry/Banana and Mocha smoothees.But there are literaly hundreds of outlets that sell the machines. You can get them at your local restaurant supply house and make your own mix if you want. Or you can buy mix from you concession supply house. I am certain your local concession supply house will sell you the machine as well.
Posted by Rachel Carter (Member # 693) on 04-02-2001, 01:15 PM:
My theater does not have one of these machines but I have seen a model made by nestle, they were all mocha and mocha swirl blends.
Posted by Charles Lubner (Member # 157) on 04-02-2001, 11:58 PM:
I've had experience with those frozen coffee marchines. DON'T GET ONE! Aside from being extremely tough to clean (it included a 30 min training video) the product tastes horrible. If you want a frozen beverage ICEE or Pepsi Freeze is a much better route to go. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I know coffee is meant to be hot, not frozen. If you don't serve enough product, a film forms at the top and you have to dump the whole batch. They're terrible machines.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-04-2001, 01:57 AM:
Did you guys ever drink iced coffee? That stuff is good! It was sold up here in Washington State, but it never took off. I guess in other parts of the country, it went over very well. (That's what I have heard, anyway.)
Posted by Rachel Carter (Member # 693) on 04-04-2001, 03:24 AM:
Iced Coffee mmmmmmmm. Everyday I MUST have my Medium French Vanilla Iced coffee, cream and Sugar from Dunks....I could NEVER live without it! 
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-04-2001, 03:25 AM:
I drink about 50 of those a day. Dunkin Donuts sells them. I drink um like this:
Mediumfrenchvannillaicecoffeeregular.
My local Dunks knows what i get so they have it ready for me when i walk in the door (thats service) I went out to Missouri because i was gonna go work for Wherenburgh and they didnt have it out there.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-04-2001, 02:00 PM:
Rachel and Sean:Sure beats drinking that stuff hat tastes like a Truck Stop rubber inner tube, doesn't it?
Posted by Rachel Carter (Member # 693) on 04-04-2001, 02:30 PM:
Oh ya! I tried a drink from one of those frozen coffee machines....YUCK! It was discusting, in my opinion not worth the time and effort to clean it.
Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 04-05-2001, 07:18 PM:
We had a unit made by a division of Parrot Ice, it was gosh awful. I asked for a breakdown of ingredients and was shocked that it contains no caffeine or coffee in it. What's the use of slamming 'em??? Cleaning the unit was a pain in the butt too!
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 04-11-2001, 10:35 PM:
So ever since this thread has started, I have been obsessed by the idea of frozen lemonade. So last weekend as the Strawberry/Banana Smoothie was running out I told the kids not to replenish it. We cleaned the machine and made lemonade. It took 10 lbs or about 40 lemons to make 3 gallons of lemonade. 
My recipe is 2 quarts of lemon juice to 1-quart sugar that has been melted in hot water. Followed by 2 1/2 gallons of water. It is delicious. Quite tart.
Yesterday we sold it out. Today I made batch #2. I also did a cost analysis. The smoothie mix from Icee costs us $1.50 per serving which is 16 oz. We charge $3.50 for it, which isn't quite the 300% markup that a concession stand requires to be profitable.
Today at the store, lemons were 4 for $1. I used 40 lemons for my 3 gallons. That's $10 in lemons and about $3 in sugar. So my batch cost $13. So my single serving cost is only $.54 cents and I'm using fresh lemons. Frankly it is a better product. The texture is quite icy instead of smooth and creamy like the smoothie mix.
So now we have fresh, frozen lemonade and upscale root beer in the cooler. I think it may be time to remove the root beer and lemonade from the coke towers and replace them with Mr. Pibb and something else.
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 04-12-2001, 12:57 AM:
Ian, I've never been able to get the root beer taste out of syrup lines. Just one of those phenomenons. I wouldn't ever let one of my theaters add it to the towers, but we sold it in 20oz bottles when we got bottled water.I've never made _real_ lemonade in the frozen drink machines, but my favorite syrup mix is Thelma's Frozen Lemonade.