Over the weekend I saw a company truck, "Jim and Joe's Ice" at the back of a local restaurant making a delivery. Stacked high behind the restaurant were bags of ice. I remember this little "Jim and Joe's" establishment from my younger days because they have this cool penguin logo. As a child, I didn't question their product, but after my observation this weekend, I did.
A company actually makes a profit selling frozen water? I often wondered who their customers were. I'll head to the local gas station or grocery store to pick up an extra bag of ice if I'm entertaining and fear I'll run out. I sure wouldn't head across town to Jim and Joe's. And, my assumption was that restaurants had some advanced industralized machinery that when water was poured in, ice would come out. Has no one come up with that idea yet?
If there hasn't been a large-sized ice machine created, I need to do it and be the hero of every O'Charley's in America. Otherwise, I think I need to go rake in the money by freezing water into little cubes and charging enormous prices for the service. Only in America can two normal "Joe's" (or Jim and Joe) make a nice living with low overhead and a common household product that we all can make easily. Go fig.
2 comments:
you would be surprised...after 14 years in restaurants, more often times than not when those large ice machines eventually break down (after pumping out 1000's upon 1000's of lbs of ice) the higher ups refuse to pay the money to get a new one.
most of the time, since the restaurant is supposedly in the business to make money instead of spend it, they spend as much time rigging it to make it work as possible.
the stupid thing is (and i dont know why a multimillion dollar company wouldnt think this through to its logical end) they spend much more money ordering the "emergency ice" on friday and saturday nights (when the machine goes out in the middle of a supper rush) than they would have had they just replaced the stupid thing in the first place.
you have struck a chord with me, that was one of my many, many, many irritations of working in a restaurant :)
I should have known my restaurant "insider" would have the scoop! I didn't even think about that! I just saw a huge opportunity to become an "ice-preneur" to appease the slow thinking ice-consuming world! ;)
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