Commercial Ice Machines in Toronto & Canada
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions we hear from operators.
What's the difference between cube, crescent, flake, and nugget-style ice?
Cube and crescent ice are the standard choices for drinks — both are dense and slow-melting, with crescent-shaped ice (our Hoshizaki KM series) curving to pack a little tighter in a glass. Flake ice is soft and moldable instead, better suited to seafood and produce display or blended drinks than to filling a glass on its own. Nugget-style chewable ice — Hoshizaki's Cubelet, Brema's Pebble, and ITV's Gourmet ice — is a softer, more porous shape that's become popular at bars and self-serve fountains simply because customers like chewing it. We carry all four shapes, so you can match the ice to what it's actually being used for.
What's the difference between a self-contained, under counter, and modular ice machine?
A self-contained ice machine has the ice-making head and storage bin built into one cabinet, ready to plug in and run — most of our Nordic Air, Atosa, and Simag lineup is built this way. An under counter ice machine is a smaller self-contained unit sized to tuck beneath a counter or bar top, like our Hoshizaki KM-BAK series and Brema CB series. A modular ice machine is just the ice-making head — it sits on top of a separately purchased storage bin or dispenser instead, which lets you scale production up without being boxed in by a fixed bin size. We carry modular heads from Atosa, Hoshizaki, and Brema, plus bins in our Ice Machine Bins collection.
What size commercial ice machine do I need?
Ice machine sizing comes down to daily production, measured in pounds of ice per 24 hours, not the machine's footprint. A 50 to 130 lb/24hr unit suits a small cafe or bar, a 200 to 500 lb/24hr machine covers most mid-size restaurants, and anything above that — up to the 2,482 lb/24hr Hoshizaki KM-2600SWJ3 in our lineup — is built for a hotel, banquet hall, or high-volume bar program. Read our blog on how to size a commercial ice machine for your business. We stock ice machines across that full range from Nordic Air, Atosa, Hoshizaki, Simag, Brema, and ITV.