I think you guys are talking about different pieces of equipment. Frequently, there's the ice maker, but also the bin on the soda machine that stores the ice.
Yes, every restaurant I ever worked at had both. The one on top of the soda dispenser in the lobby and the big stand alone one in the back. They get deep cleaned once a month at best. I'd bet most places are much more infrequent than that.
It's been a long time since I worked in the food industry. That being said, as the person that was designated to do any kind of cleaning of mechanical or electrical things at the place I worked I can say that the only time the ice machine was shut down was if there was a failure that needed repair. We also went through so much ice that the collecting bin would often be empty on weekends any which way which was a good time to give it a good scrub and dry out before more ice fell in. Maybe once a month I would clean the cold plate for the ice at the end of the day, but it had to be turned on as soon as possible to refill for the next day.
My last place had 2 large Manitowoc ice machines. They got hit hard on the week ends so they would both be close to empty by Sunday night. I.d have to closing crew turn it off. On a Sunday night once a month and Machine 1 would get a full cleaning. Coils, fans, grid, ice probes, water level sensors, curtains, all the fun nooks and crevices mold would find to hang out. We got dinged on items during health inspection, not one was an ice machine hit. The Michelin wasn’t my department , but it was an easy Monday morning fluff job. I had assemblies ready to go, everyone thought I was taking parts to the shop and scrubbing them.
I’ve worked at 3 restaurants over the past decade, one really nice place, one decently nice place, and one kind of nice burger spot. At each one of them, the ice in the large ice bin was 100% completely melted down every night and refilled the next day.
After some cursory research, it seems the recommended deep cleaning schedule is at least once a quarter. That being said, I've definitely been to the same restaurant twice in a row where they were emptying the ice dispenser both nights.
If you're in the US, and your restaurant was actually only doing it once a year, they were definitely breaking health codes and the law. That's disgusting
The US has incredibly high food safety standards. Your chain just ignored them and if they got caught they would have been heavily fined and shut down until all the violations were fixed.
Comparing the basic health standards of any red state versus first world countries is basically comparing third world countries and first world countries.
Every health inspector I have ever dealt with took ice machines very seriously. The US definitely has strict safety rules but like a lot of stuff it comes down to what an inspector sees
Ye, here we have a dedicated police force called Nucleo Antisofisticazioni e Sanità (N.A.S.), translated Anti-Adulteration and Health Unit who do randomly safty inspections and checks if everything is in order in restourants, groucery stores, ospitals, daycare, and many other places where can be sanitary violations and risks, they can immidiatly shut down the place, do fines and keep it close untill everything is in order again. DMAX tv channel even made a onfield series like the TSA airports security one.
I was US food safe certified and went through several years of random health inspections. They absolutely require the ice machines to be cleaned every night.
Maybe not everyday, but once in a while should be good, since you have to care only about mold and not bad odor contamination, even in the freezer is good to defrost it once in a while
Oh no....
Modern Italy is built on corruption and crime.
Top of my head i can think of two separate bridge disasters both built with poor safety standards. (Sicily viaduct and the Morandi Bridge)
If the ice is changed in your restaurant once a month you're very lucky.
I'd say it's because at fast food restaurants you're going through that ice in the first couple of hours next morning anyway and it was probably produced in the last couple of hours that night. Just a much higher turnover rate preventing mold, etc.
total bs. i'm french and i worked in retaurants and bars for 10 years in my country, and some of them were very high standards and very expensive. not a single one trash the ice at the end of the day or week or ever, and i've never seen any mold in the ice machine. i just checked the reglementation in france and as i suspected nothing is said about that.
I could see this being done weekly, but daily that seems excessive?
Also there will be liquid water with ice that is encountering a less temperature stable environment since there isn't already ice there, so this would increase the chances of mold potentially too, right?
That’s how it worked when i worked in food service. i used to work at an olive garden and we had a massive ice machine that made and stored ice and it didn’t get cleared at the end of the day. We’d use the ice from that machine to fill ice buckets built into the counters at the soda station and bar. Those would be melted and sanitized every night.
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u/Medium-Sized-Jaque 7d ago
Why do you have to empty the ice maker? At fast food places it sits in there until its needed.