another beginner with I. Ice

[lerue58]

I have a good location outdoors with power available. Is there a need for cold plates to store and sell scooped ice from small cart? It gets hot and humid in the summers here in Iowa.

[Iceman39]

There are basically 2 common carts you can use for Italian Ice. One is simply insulated with no cold plate and then there is the cold plate cart. After talking to several people about this I am going to go with the cold plate cart for a few reasons. 1 is if you are going to be outside for long periods of time, like over 8 hours then if the location you're at has elcectric available (this would be a fair, festival etc.) then you can always plug in and cool the cart if you need to. I look for quality used carts all the time. Custom Carts in New Jersey makes a really good cart and quite a few people I've talked to have gotten their carts from Custom. Hope this helps.......good luck......Neil in Florida.

[icequeen]

I have the 800M cold plate cart from Custom. I haven't had it out yet - inspection is this morning! A couple of drawbacks, or things you should be aware of before working with Custom:

1) the caster wheels are small and will probably not work well in grass. You may want to ask about other wheel options.
2) the cart is pretty big and heavy - bigger and heavier than I had expected.
3) there is no way to lock the cart at night so if you go to a multi-day event there is no way to guarentee no one will mess with your product (I imagine that Custom could install something but it was never offered to me and I wasn't forward-thinking enough to ask).
4) Custom didn't provide any instructions - I kind of figured it out as I went. I know, it's a pushcart, what's to figure out? Joking aside, things like setting the temp and understanding the sink plug-ins (if you get the model with the sink).

Please let me know if you end up with this model - I should have some serving experience under my belt soon and am happy to share experiences.

Stephanie

[3guysice]

You absolutely do NOT need coldplates for Italian ice. That is a waste of money. There is no need for it at all. The Italian Ice freezes colder and harder than ice cream. If your cart is well made and well insulated then you can easily go for 8 hours with no melting. To illustrate, we donated carts full of Italian ice to a 24 hour cancer walk last month and on a few carts that werent selling well we waited for 12 hours before we put new Italian ice in them and the old Italian ice was still frozen. What this means is that so long as your cart is really well insulated there is no need for the added cost and burden of cold plates. You can then save your money and concentrate on expanding your business. We sell our carts for $1500 and they absolutely will keep you ice frozen all day long with no problems.