Consultant Project Gallery

UCLA Bruin Cafe Retrofit

Avoid ice shortages even during peak demand

UCLA's Bruin Café, originally designed to serve up to 2,000 meals per day, was now serving over 5,000 meals.  By the time the lunchtime crowd arrived they were running into severe ice shortages.  The Café needed an ice machine system that could keep up with their growing demand even on their busiest days.

Solution:  Horizon™ Chewblet® ice machines with RIDE™

Working in conjunction with UCLA's Housing and Hospitality Services, Follett audited the Café's hourly drink dispensing rate by for an 8-hour period on a busy day.  The calculations indicated that meeting their demand required two VU300 VisionTM ice and beverage dispensers fed by four HorizonTM 1000 Series ice machine.

Vision's low profile and undercounter storage create a sleek, attractive appearance in drink stations and help keep an open sight line that is beneficial in island applications.  Horizon ice machines offer the benefits of Follett's exclusive RIDETM remote ice delivery equipment that allows the ice to be delivered through a tube to dispenser located up to 75 feet away.  This feature keeps the heat and noise of the ice machines out of the customer area for more attractive aesthetics and an improved dining experience. 

The Café's drink station counters were modified to accept the Vision dispensers, and the four Horizon ice machines were installed on a custom rack in the basement 20 feet directly below the Café.  The concrete floor was core-drilled to allow the ice transport tube to pass through to the drink station counters in order to feed ice to the Vision dispensers.  With this new system, the Café's ice shortage problems were solved.

Read more about:

Vision ice and beverage dispensers

Horizon Chewblet ice machines

Follett's exclusive RIDE

Creating an upscale beverage station

Increasing your beverage sales with Chewblet ice

Additional Horizon Ice Machine Projects
Iowa Western Community College

Manage ice behind the scenes for attractive dining room aesthetics

One of the challenges a consultant faces when designing a food service facility is to offer the necessary beverage service stations and seamless ice availability to handle the number of people anticipated to use the facility throughout the serving hours. Customers tend not to want to wander too far from where they get their entrées to locate their beverage choice. Locating and filling soda dispensers automatically while maintaining the customer flow and aesthetics of the location are key elements.

Solution: Follett Ice Manager™

In this location four Follett VU155B8 Vision™ ice and beverage dispensers are dispersed in the dining area and are fed automatically by two Follett HCC1400AMS Horizon™ ice machines and two Follett IMDV Ice Manager diverter valve systems. Each ice machine monitors and fills two dispensers with a single ice maker.  Since Horizon ice machines offer RIDE™ remote ice delivery equipment, these systems are located out of the serving areas with ice being transported by insulated tubes overhead, through the walls and into the dispensers without customers seeing or hearing the process.

The result:  the facility is very attractive and very efficient with Follett low profile dispensers adding to the great-looking counters, serving areas and facility aesthetics.

  

Read more about:

Ice Manager Diverter Valve System

Horizon Chewblet ice machines

Vision ice and beverage dispensers

Follett's exclusive RIDE

Filling two dispensers with one ice machine

Increasing your beverage sales with Chewblet ice
Additional Ice Manager Projects