THE BEST ICE MACHINES OF 2023

The world of commercial ice equipment is a mystery to most people, including business owners who have relied on ice machines for decades. With a handful of brands to choose from and several different models per brand, it can be tough to decide which ice machine is right for your business.

Now, you don’t have to make that decision alone. Easy Ice, the only national provider of commercial ice machine rentals, has compiled our first Best Ice Machines list to help business owners pick out the right brand and model for their needs.

Why should you trust our judgment? We’re the largest ice machine rental company in America, with over 33,000 subscription customers across 47 states. We’ve been in business since 2009, and many of our staff members have decades of experience in the commercial ice machine industry. We’re not affiliated with any one brand; we use machines from multiple manufacturers in our subscription program to satisfy our customers.

Here’s an excerpt from our Best Ice Machines of 2023 list:

Restaurant Favorites

The Manitowoc Indigo NXT IT Series: Best for Small, Medium, and Large Restaurants

Ice machines from Manitowoc’s Indigo series appear across multiple categories on our list, thanks to their maintenance-friendly design and reliability. Manitowoc is a consumer-favorite, American-made brand that you’ll find in restaurants and bars all over the country. The Indigo series produces Manitowoc’s regular cube, dice cube, and half dice cube.

Small and medium restaurants typically use around 600lbs. of ice every 24 hours, so the IT0620 is often the right Indigo series model for them. For larger restaurants, we recommend the IT1200, which produces around 1000 lbs. of ice daily. These two models are identical outside of production capacity.

BONUS: The Manitowoc IT0620 is also our pick for best ice cube ma- chine to pair with soda fountains. This model fits perfectly on top of most beverage dispensers, and the Manitowoc cube types are already popular with quick service restaurants.

The ICETRO IM-0770-AN: Best Nugget Ice Machine for Soda Fountains

Speaking of soda fountains, some restaurant owners want nugget ice for theirs instead of hard cubes. Given how much America loves nugget ice—also known as cubelet ice, pellet ice, Sonic ice, etc.—we’re not surprised.

In our customers’ experience, ICETRO’s nugget ice machine performs the best long-term in this specific application, and the brand is one of the more affordable on the market. Whether you’re considering an ICETRO or another brand, make sure you have a dispenser designed for nugget ice, or the ice won’t make it through!

By Ice Type

The list of ice types is longer than most people think! Hard cubes vs. soft ice, standard shapes vs. specialty ice—business owners have plenty to choose from.

Hoshizaki, the Japanese brand that has long dominated the commercial ice equipment industry, is our pick in two of the ice type categories, one specialty and one standard.

The Hoshizaki KM-660MAJ: Best Crescent Ice Machine

The crescent cube is Hoshizaki’s signature ice, a cube widely beloved in the restaurant industry. No other brand does it better than they do. Their 600 lb. crescent cube machine stays in our top 3 requested models every year.

The KM-660MAJ, like all Hoshizaki ice machines, features the brand’s CycleSaver™ design—so your ice machine will use less water and energy than competing models and last longer thanks to the better cycle-to-ice-production ratio.

*Special Note: if you run a restaurant in a coastal location where the air is salty or in a region with especially hard water, consider a Manitowoc ice machine instead. Their evaporators tend to tolerate those conditions better than Hoshizaki’s.

The Hoshizaki IM-500SAB and IM-50BAA-LM: Best Square Cube Machines

Whether you want standard square ice for your bar or extralarge specialty cubes, Hoshizaki is, by far, the most dependable brand offering them.

Their IM-500SAB produces 1-inch square cubes perfect for high-end liquors served on the rocks, and continued on page 130