Ice machine for a restaurant (full-service)

A full-service restaurant is dining-room ice plus add-ons, not one brochure number. Glasses and iced tea are one line. The cocktail well, the salad bar, and bags for catering or a sister location are separate loads. Putting the bar on a 38 lb undercounter bin, or expecting a 90 lb cabinet to cover 300 Saturday covers, is how the dish pit buys bagged ice at 7 p.m.

This is a planning page from published application factors and current OEM sheets. It is not a dealer quote, not a review score, and not a health-code opinion. Confirm electrical, plumbing, clearance, and sanitation with the people who inspect the building.

Published lb/guest factors

Application charts treat restaurant ice as pounds per guest (or cover) on a peak day, then tell you to add bar, display, and bagged ice as their own lines. Those are dealer/application rules of thumb, not a manufacturer warranty and not a lab measurement.

The VenueIce sizing table already starts a full-service restaurant at about 1.5 lb per guest and says to add bar, salad bar, and fish display as extra lines. Use 1.5 lb when the source that matches the dining room is Atlantic or Kitchen Spot. Use 1.5–2 lb when the source is Light Soda or HVACDirect. Use 2 lb when the source is GoFoodservice’s restaurant line. Do not fold the bar into the cover count — Kitchen Spot and Atlantic publish a 3 lb cocktail line as its own row. Do not copy a church fellowship-hall 2 lb/person event factor into a Tuesday dinner service.

Worked 80-cover dining room

Same peak-day method as the sizing page: count the people in the room, pick a published factor, add the reserve the source uses. Dining room only — no bar, no salad bar, no bags.

• Covers: 80
• Atlantic / Kitchen Spot restaurant line (1.5 lb): 80 × 1.5 = 120 lb
• Kitchen Spot +20% reserve: about 144 lb
• Light Soda / HVACDirect upper band (2 lb): 80 × 2 = 160 lb; +20% → 192 lb

That 120–144 lb Kitchen Spot band is still in large-undercounter territory if the bin covers the rush. A Hoshizaki KM-161BAK is 156 lb on the current product page with a 78 lb bin. A Manitowoc UYF-0140A is 137 / 100 lb with a 90 lb bin. A Manitowoc UYF-0190A is 193 / 140 lb in the same 90 lb cabinet — more make, not more stored ice at 5:30. A Hoshizaki KM-81BAK is 98 / 76 lb with a 38 lb bin. Hoshizaki’s own copy on that page is “small bars, hotel lobbies, and office break rooms.” It is not an 80-cover dinner plant.

The bin, not the “up to 156 lb” headline, is the dinner constraint. See the rush section below.

Worked 80-cover night with a bar and a salad bar

Same dining room, plus the add-ons the sizing table already names.

• Dining room (Atlantic / Kitchen Spot 1.5 lb): 80 × 1.5 = 120 lb
• 24-seat cocktail well (Atlantic / Kitchen Spot 3 lb per seat / person): 24 × 3 = 72 lb
• Salad bar: Kitchen Spot 35 lb per cubic foot; GoFoodservice 30 lb per cubic foot. A 2 ft³ well is 60–70 lb in the well before anyone replenishes it. We did not measure your well. Weigh a fill or use the published lb/ft³ on the actual volume.
• Peak-day subtotal on the 1.5 lb dining line: 120 + 72 + ~65 = about 257 lb
• Kitchen Spot +20%: about 308 lb
• Atlantic’s seasonal-restaurant reserve band is 15–25%; their outdoor / patio band is 25–30%. Light Soda tells operators in hot-summer markets to add at least 15–25% for summer. Pick the reserve the source that matches the patio uses. Do not stack every chart.

308 lb after Kitchen Spot’s reserve is past every undercounter bin in this directory (largest built-in is 90 lb on the NEO 140/190 sheet). It is also past the 90/70 columns we have on those cabinets (UYF-0190A 140 lb; ICEU150HA 130 lb). That is a modular cube head + bin job for drinks, plus a flake cabinet if the salad bar is on flake — Atlantic and Hoshizaki both treat display ice as a different ice type. See cube vs half-dice vs nugget vs flake. A cocktail program that wants gourmet or sphere ice is a second machine; that math lives on best ice for a cocktail bar.

Bagged ice is another line, not a fudge factor. Atlantic’s worksheet has a row for bagging or off-site use. GoFoodservice’s packaged-ice line (convenience-store context) is 10 lbs × bags sold per day. Count the bags you actually send out on the peak day.

Worked 300-cover Saturday (Atlantic’s restaurant example)

Atlantic’s published full-service example uses 300 covers, ice for drinks, a small bar, and kitchen prep:

• Guest demand: 300 × 1.5 lb = 450 lb
• Additional prep and bar use: 60 lb (their figure)
• Peak-day subtotal: 510 lb
• 15% reserve: 76.5 lb
• Target: 586.5 lb/day — they call the practical shopping range approximately 600 lb/day

That 600 lb target is a modular plant. The 400–550 lb heads in this directory sit under it on a 70/50 “up to” number and closer to it once you read the 90/70 column. A Hoshizaki KM-520MAJ is approximately 556 lb on the current product page (90/70 not on that HTML). A Manitowoc IYT0450A dealer page we opened lists 490 lb/day; the directory already cites 378 lb AHRI @ 90/70 from earlier OEM/dealer transcription — treat 90/70 as labeled there. An Ice-O-Matic CIM0430A sheet we opened lists 435 / 320 lb. A Scotsman C0330MA-1 listing we opened lists 400 / 288 lb. None of those 90/70 cells is 600 lb. Atlantic’s 300-cover restaurant is either a larger head than this directory carries, two heads, or their 70/50 shopping number with the 90/70 derate still to apply.

Kitchen Spot and GoFoodservice both say there are reasons to run more than one machine (backup, shorter walks, cube at the well and flake at the display). That is an operations split, not a review.

The dinner-rush window

A 24-hour rating is not a bucket. Restaurant ice is taken in a short window — lunch, then dinner — not as 8 lb every hour for 24 hours.

Atlantic’s own bin example is a restaurant that uses 240 lb during a three-hour dinner rush on a 600 lb/day machine. They divide 600 by 24 to get a theoretical 25 lb/hour, subtract 75 lb of make during the window, and still need 165 lb of stored ice plus opening stock. They land on about 240 lb of usable storage as the minimum calculated bin, then tell you to buy a larger practical bin because ice bridges.

Take the 80-cover Kitchen Spot dining room (120 lb before reserve). If even half of that is scooped between 5:30 and 8:00:

• Dinner pull: about 60 lb in 2.5 hours
• KM-161BAK stored ice: 78 lb. The current HTML page does not print a 90/70 production cell, so we do not invent an hourly make. On stored ice alone the 78 lb bin covers a 60 lb pull if it is actually full at 5:30.
• UYF-0140A stored ice: 90 lb. Make during the window at the sheet’s 100 lb @ 90/70 is 100 ÷ 24 ≈ 4.2 lb/hour × 2.5 h ≈ 10 lb. On paper: ~100 lb against a 60 lb dining-only pull.
• Add the 24-seat well (72 lb) to the same window and the 90 lb undercounter bin is the constraint, not the 24-hour column.

That hourly split (24-hour rating ÷ 24) is arithmetic, not an OEM hourly guarantee. Harvest is cyclic. A boxed-in cook-line alcove will not even give you the 90/70 column. See how to size and air-cooled vs water-cooled.

Kitchen heat derate

Manufacturer “up to” numbers are a 70°F air / 50°F water comparison point. The machine that lives next to the range is not in that room.

• Kitchen Spot: if the machine is in a 90° kitchen with ~70° water, “you can expect less ice production by as much as 15% or more.” Ice-O-Matic, Scotsman, and Manitowoc “all publish output for various models at different ambient temperatures.”
• Atlantic: a hot, poorly ventilated room is not the DOE test. Do not pick a machine whose advertised capacity exactly equals peak demand with no margin.
• GoFoodservice: listed capacities are under ideal conditions; “actual output may be 10–15% lower in hot environments.”
• Light Soda: real-world output varies with ambient temperature, water quality, and usage. Size for peak, not average.

Cited 70/50 → 90/70 drops on sheets we opened (air-cooled unless noted):

Compare the 90/70 column to the peak-day target when the sheet has one. A 400 lb “up to” head that makes 288 lb in a 90° cook line is a 288 lb machine that night.

Air-cooled heads also dump heat into that line. KM-520MAJ heat rejection is 7,000 BTU/h on the current product page. KM-161BAK is 2,800 BTU/h. KM-81BAK is 1,800 BTU/h. F-330BAK is 3,400 BTU/h. NEO U-140 / U-190 family sheet: 2,150 average / 2,600 peak. CIM0430A sheet: 5,100 BTU/h. Those BTUs become kitchen cooling load on an air-cooled cabinet. See air-cooled vs water-cooled.

Form factor: undercounter vs modular head + bin

Atlantic, GoFoodservice, Light Soda, and HVACDirect all draw the same line: undercounter when demand is low-to-moderate and the built-in bin covers the rush; modular head + bin when production is high or storage has to be chosen separately.

Undercounter is one 115 V cabinet with a built-in bin. It fits a side station if the sheet’s height, front-breathing clearance, and drain work. No separate bin SKU. The bin, not the 24-hour rating, is the rush limit. Light Soda’s published bands put under 300 lb/day in compact undercounter / countertop territory and 300–600 lb/day in “mid-range undercounter or small modular.” GoFoodservice’s undercounter band is 50–500 lb/day make with 7–250 lb built-in storage; their “typical commercial output” sentence for standard bar/restaurant use is 100–250 lb per day. This directory’s largest undercounter bin is 90 lb. Once the rush needs more stored ice than that, you have left undercounter class even if a brochure still says “under 300 lb/day.”

Modular head + bin is how you get Atlantic’s dinner-rush storage and Kitchen Spot’s 10–20% larger bin than daily make. Production and storage are separate SKUs. Order the bin (and any top kit) from the head’s compatibility list. GoFoodservice’s modular line starts at 250 lb/day and is their “high-volume restaurants” form. The smallest modular cube heads in this directory are the 400–550 lb class. That is a kitchen plant, often hardwired, not a side-station plug-in. Form-factor background: undercounter vs modular vs countertop.

Flake at the salad bar is not the drink machine. Hoshizaki’s current F-330BAK page says the cabinet is “perfect for salad bars, seafood displays, and other applications requiring long-lasting, sanitary ice.” Atlantic’s ice-type table assigns flake to “seafood, meat, produce, salad bars, food displays.” If you need both, specify two systems.

Cube ice (crescent, half-dice, medium cube) is the usual glass and well ice. Nugget / cubelet is chewable soda ice. Gourmet is a bar rock. See cube vs half-dice vs nugget vs flake.

Current undercounters (OEM sheets)

Figures are manufacturer ratings. Full citations live on each directory page. Street prices omitted. These cabinets are side-station and small-dining tools unless you also have a dump bin or a second plant for the well and the display.

KM-81BAK and KM-161BAK are R290 on those current Hoshizaki pages. A Hoshizaki AM-50BAK (54 lb, 27 lb bin) is a suite / office / garnish cabinet. It is not a dining-room plant.

Current modular heads + bins (OEM sheets)

Pair the head with a bin from the compatibility list, not with an undercounter leftover. Restaurant logic is the same as hotel F&B: storage for the service window.

Hoshizaki bins we opened on 2026-09-03 (application capacity = volume × 30 lb/ft³ on each page; height includes 6″ legs; top kits sold separately):

Kitchen Spot’s usual bin rule is 10–20% larger than daily make, except the church / one-or-two-days-a-week pattern. A restaurant turns the bin over. Do not park a week of ice in a sealed bin. Follow the clean/sanitize interval on the machine sheet. We are not writing a health-department letter.

A 200 lb-class head is not in this directory today. Do not assume a 22″ head drops onto a 30″ or 44″ lid without the top kit on the current sheet.

Salad-bar flake (separate plant)

Drink cubes on a salad bar are the wrong ice type in Atlantic’s table. Hoshizaki wrote salad bar / seafood / display on the F-330BAK page.

Hoshizaki F-330BAK current product page (retrieved 2026-09-03): up to 331 lb flake / 24 h, 80 lb built-in bin (2.7 ft³, AHRI 820 method), 24″ × 26″ × 39″, 115/60/1, 6.3 A, 15 A max fuse, 8 ft NEMA 5-15P, R290 (2.8 oz), 4.29 kWh/100 lb @ 90/70, 12 gal/100 lb, 3,400 BTU/h. 90/70 production is not on that HTML page — omitted. Front-in / front-out. ENERGY STAR stated on the page.

Kitchen Spot’s salad-bar factor is 35 lb/ft³. GoFoodservice’s is 30 lb/ft³. Size the flake cabinet from the well volume and how often you refill it, not from the dining-room 1.5 lb line. An 80 lb bin is one well-and-a-half at those factors if the well is about 2–2.5 ft³ — measure the well.

Hoshizaki’s 4HC-H filter page (already noted on the F-330 directory page) says that filter is not recommended for flakers. Use the filter the F-330 sheet specifies.

Power, drain, air, filter (cook-line realism)

Many restaurant ice rooms are a hot hole: one circuit, a dish sink, a range ten feet away, and a louver that someone boxed in. Read the sheet before the quote.

• 115 V cord-and-plug on the compact undercounters above (KM-81, KM-161, UYF-0140/0190, F-330BAK). A KM-520MAJ is a hardwired 115 V / 20 A-class head. CIM0430A’s cited sheet is 115 V, 11.0 A min. circuit, 15 A fuse — confirm cord vs junction box on the current PDF. Two cabinets on one cook-line circuit is an electrician question.
• Drain. Gravity to a nearby floor drain or sink tail if the sheet’s fall and fitting work (KM-81 / KM-161 / KM-520 / F-330: 3/4″ FPT on those current pages; NEO family sheet: 1/2″ FPT ice-making drain and 1/2″ FPT bin drain). Hoshizaki accessory HS-5061 is the listed drain pump on AM/C/KM compact units. Melt water is not optional.
• Air / alcove. Front-in / front-out cabinets (KM-81BAK, KM-161BAK, F-330BAK) exist for tight holes. Modular heads still need the clearance on the sheet (CIM0430A PDF: 6″ intake and exhaust). A boxed-in louver is a derate. Use the 90/70 column if you have it.
• Water-cooled condensers dump heat into condenser water. CIM0430W on the same Ice-O-Matic PDF lists 169 gal/100 lb condenser water. Many cities restrict once-through cooling. Do not pick water-cooled to hide a cook-line install without a mechanical reason.
• Filter. Ice-machine filter, not “the building’s drinking fountain cartridge.” See filters and descalers.
• Water pressure. Hoshizaki compact and KM-520 pages list about 10–113 psig. Manitowoc NEO and the CIM0430 sheet list 20–80 psi. Too little pressure and harvest fails.
• Do not use a household countertop nugget machine as if it were NSF commercial equipment unless the listing says it is.

What this page is not

• Not a code letter. NSF marks and manuals are on the sheets. We do not say an install “meets” a health department.
• Not a review. No scores, no invented “we installed N of these.”
• Not a price list.
• Not a cafe, bar, hotel, church, or office guide. Those venues keep their own pages.
• Not a country-club campus. Dining-room 1.5 lb covers are one line. A grill plus a lounge plus a ballroom is ice machine for a country club.
• Not a stadium concession. Dining-room covers stay here. A concession stand at 2 lb per customer is the stadium line.
• Not QSR fountain math. Kitchen Spot’s ounce-per-cup lines and Atlantic’s 0.5–1.0 lb quick-service row are a different worksheet.
• Not healthcare. Dispenser families sold into hospitals are out of scope here.

Sources

1. Atlantic Store Equipment, Commercial Ice Machine Sizing Guide — full-service restaurant about 1.5 lb per customer; add bar, seafood, salad-bar, prep, and catering separately; worked 300-cover example (450 + 60 + 15% → ~587 lb, shop ~600); dinner-rush bin example (240 lb in three hours on a 600 lb/day machine); reserves 15–25% (seasonal restaurant) and 25–30% (outdoor / highly variable); flake assigned to salad bars / displays. Dated Jul 15, 2026 on the live article (retrieved 2026-09-03).
2. The Kitchen Spot, Ice Machines: Sizing for Application — restaurant 1.5 lbs per guest; cocktail bar 3 lbs per person; salad bar 35 lbs per cubic foot; table marked +20% for safe margin; 90° kitchen / 70° water can cut make by 15% or more; bin usually 10–20% larger than daily make (church exception is not a restaurant pattern); multiple machines for backup / access / ice type.
3. Light Soda On Tap, How Many Pounds of Ice Does a Restaurant Need Per Day? — full-service 1.5–2 lb per customer per meal service; 100-seat two-service 70% occupancy example 210–280 lb beverage-only; add 10–20% for summer and another 10% if a bar runs alongside the dining room; form-factor bands under 300 / 300–600 / 600+ lb/day. Dated June 4, 2026 (retrieved 2026-09-03).
4. HVACDirect, Commercial Ice Machine Buying Guide — restaurant 1.5–2 lbs. per customer; undercounter “ideal for offices, cafes, and smaller establishments”; modular heads “perfect for large production volumes” (retrieved 2026-09-03).
5. GoFoodservice, Commercial Ice Machine Guide — restaurant 2 lbs per person; cocktail 3 lbs per seat; salad bar 30 lbs per cubic foot; flaked ice 2 lbs per person; modular 250–2,500 lb/day “best for high-volume restaurants”; undercounter 50–500 lb/day, “typical commercial output 100–250 lbs per day for standard bar/restaurant use”; actual output may be 10–15% lower in hot rooms. Last updated Aug 18, 2026 (retrieved 2026-09-03).
6. Hoshizaki, KM-520MAJ product page — ~556 lb, 22″ × 27.375″ × 28″, 115 V hardwire, 10.6 A, 20 A max fuse, 7,000 BTU/h, compatible B-250–B-1300 (retrieved 2026-09-03).
7. Hoshizaki, KM-161BAK product page — 156 lb, 78 lb bin, 23.75″ × 28″ × 39″, 115 V, 3.5 A, 2,800 BTU/h (retrieved 2026-09-03).
8. Hoshizaki, KM-81BAK product page — 98 lb, 38 lb bin, 17.75″ × 24″ × 39″, 115 V, 2.4 A, 1,800 BTU/h; “small bars, hotel lobbies, and office break rooms” (retrieved 2026-09-03).
9. Hoshizaki, F-330BAK product page — 331 lb flake, 80 lb bin, 24″ × 26″ × 39″, 115 V, 6.3 A, 5-15P, 3,400 BTU/h; “perfect for salad bars, seafood displays” (retrieved 2026-09-03).
10. Hoshizaki, B-300SF and B-500SF product pages — 300 / 500 lb application capacity; 22″ / 30″; top kits sold separately (retrieved 2026-09-03).
11. Manitowoc, NEO 140/190 family sheet — UYF-0140A 137 / 100 lb; UYF-0190A 193 / 140 lb; 90 lb bin; 26″ × 28.50″ × 38.50″ on 6″ legs; 115 V, 5 A / 6 A, 15 A max fuse, 6 ft 5-15P; 2,150 / 2,600 BTU/h (sheet 6501D 6/22; retrieved 2026-09-03).
12. URI, IYT0450A listing — 490 lb/day, 30″ × 24.5″ × 21.5″, 115 V, MCA 11.9 A, 20 A max fuse, R410A, suggested D400 / D570, not stackable (retrieved 2026-09-03).
13. Ice-O-Matic, CIM0430/0435/0436 spec PDF — CIM0430A 435 / 320 lb, 30.25″ × 24.25″ × 21.25″, 115/60/1, 11.0 A / 15 A, 5,100 BTU/h, 6″ clearance; CIM0430W condenser water 169 gal/100 lb (retrieved 2026-09-03).
14. Rewonline, Scotsman C0330MA-1 listing — 400 lb @ 70/50, 288 lb AHRI @ 90/70, 30″ × 24″ × 23″, 115 V, 14.3 A (retrieved 2026-09-03).
15. Directory pages already citing the same OEM language: KM-81BAK, KM-161BAK, UYF-0140A, UYF-0190A, ICEU150HA, KM-520MAJ, IYT0450A, CIM0430A, C0330MA-1, F-330BAK, AM-50BAK.

If two sheets disagree, we say so and prefer the latest OEM page or PDF.