Every bar has a moment when the ice runs out — usually somewhere between the second and third round of a Friday night rush. It is rarely a machine fault. More often the ice maker was sized against a weekly average, a supplier’s rough guess or the footprint of the unit it replaced, rather than the venue’s genuine busiest hour. Getting the number right starts with counting what actually leaves the well between 7pm and 8pm, then working backwards through production, storage and melt.
Start With the Busiest Hour, Not the Average Day
Most sizing conversations begin with a vague question: how much ice do you need? It is the wrong starting point. An ice machine has two jobs — cover the draw during service, and rebuild the bin between services. The second job is easy to estimate. The first is where venues get caught, because ice demand is spiky. A pub might move 800 drinks across a trading day but pour 220 of them inside a single hour, and that hour is the one that decides whether the well stays full or the bartender starts sending runners to the bottle shop.
Build a drink-by-drink tally
Pick the busiest trading week of the last quarter, or forecast the one coming — Melbourne Cup, a summer long weekend, a new function calendar. Pull your point-of-sale data by hour and group the drinks by how they use ice: neat and stirred down, spirits on the rocks, tall highballs, shaken or stirred cocktails with a dump, blended drinks, ice buckets, jugs of water and soft drink, wine served over ice, oyster and seafood displays. Then add the invisible draws — ice wells, chilling bottles on the pass, blender rinses, staff drinks.
As a working starting point before you measure your own, a standard rocks pour takes roughly 200 to 250 grams of ice, a tall highball 280 to 350 grams, and a shaken cocktail 350 to 450 grams once the dump is counted. An ice bucket for a bottle of sparkling can pull 1.5 to 2 kilograms on its own. Multiply your busiest-hour drink counts by those weights, then add 10 to 15 per cent for top-ups and spillage. That total is your peak-hour draw, and it is the number every later decision should answer to.
Finally, apply the multipliers that reality insists on. A 38-degree day with the doors open to a beer garden can lift demand noticeably; a function running alongside à la carte service can double it for an hour. If your busiest hour is a function, size for the function. And remember that ice melts in the well during quiet stretches, so the machine is not just replacing what is sold — it is replacing what disappears.
Turning That Peak Hour Into Output and Usable Bin Capacity
Spec sheets lead with a 24-hour production figure, and it is easy to divide by 24 and assume that is the hourly rate. Treat that with caution. The headline figure is produced under stated conditions, and those conditions are spelled out per model — warmer ambient air and warmer incoming water both reduce real-world output. A machine asked to work in a hot back bar beside a combi oven will not hit the same numbers as one in a cool, ventilated store room. Read the model-specific production conditions on each listing rather than comparing headline numbers across brands.
Output is only half the equation. Usable bin capacity is the other half, and it is where most shortfalls hide. A fast producer with a small bin can still run dry in the middle of a rush; a large bin fed by a slow producer will be full at open and empty by 10pm. The bin is your buffer between the machine’s recovery rate and the peak draw, and it has to absorb melt as well — cube ice sitting in a bin loses volume across a shift, faster in a warm bar or when the lid is constantly flipped open. As a rule of thumb, look for a bin that holds comfortably more than one peak hour’s draw so the machine is not chasing the rush from empty.
Then choose the arrangement. Self-contained units combine the ice-making head and a bin in one cabinet, which suits under-bench spots behind a tight back bar. Modular units pair a head with a separate bin, letting you add storage without adding production, and can feed ice tubs or dispensers in a servery. Check what is actually supplied with each listing — head only, head and bin, or a complete package.
The Atlantic Equipment range currently lists 228 products, a current catalogue count that can change, across brands including Scotsman, Skope, Hoshizaki and Blizzard, with self-contained units, modular units, ice tubs, dispensers and water filters listed separately. If the arithmetic above is getting tangled, comparing ice makers sized for bar demand side by side is a practical way to see how head-and-bin combinations stack up before you commit, and the Granville team can talk through pairings against your own peak-hour figure.
Ice Format, Placement and Service Access
Cube, half dice, nugget and granular
Ice format changes both pour cost and how the drink reads. Full dice melts more slowly, which suits spirits over ice and slow-sipping serves. Half dice chills faster and packs more tightly into glassware, making it a strong default for high-volume highballs and cocktails. Gourmet and crystal cubes are a presentation choice for premium lists, while nugget and granular ice suit fast service and dispenser setups, and crescent shapes cover general bar work. Whichever you pick, aim for consistency — a bar running two formats needs two machines, or a clear split between front bar and function service.
Placement matters as much as capacity. Air-cooled units reject heat into the room, so a machine jammed into a closed cupboard under the back bar will run hot, produce less and age quickly. Plan for ventilation and clearance around the unit, a workable drain, and a nearby water supply. Under-bench cube makers suit tight back bars, countertop dispensers work well for front-of-house self-service, and modular heads in a back room can feed tubs and service points. Think about noise, too — a machine cycling beside a dining room is a different proposition to one behind a closed door.
Water quality and maintenance deserve a line in the brief. The range includes water filters for good reason: scale shortens equipment life and affects ice clarity. Build a cleaning and sanitising rhythm into the roster, keep a dedicated scoop in the bin, and never let a glass do the scooping. Venues buying across multiple sites should standardise on a format and a bin size so staff move between bars without relearning the equipment.
Atlantic Equipment has supplied and supported professional kitchens across New South Wales since 2002 from its Granville warehouse and showroom at 151/153 Parramatta Road, with a 21-person team stocking 140-plus Australian and international brands and providing advice, delivery, installation and after-sales support. The showroom is open Monday to Friday 9:00am–5:00pm and Saturday 10:00am–2:00pm, and the company is an authorised dealer for SilverChef Rent-Try-Buy, which lets you rent equipment with low weekly payments and the option to upgrade or purchase after 12 months. Confirm current terms on the live page and in a written quotation, and check the catalogue for current pricing and availability. Write your real peak-hour draw on the quote brief before anyone recommends a model — that single figure will steer production, bin size, format and placement far more reliably than a floor plan ever will.
