I always associate 7/11 and ICEE because that’s where we bought them as kids. We’d see the ICEE sign outside the store and beg dad to stop on road trips.
But what does that machine do? Do they pour bottled Coke in it? Coke syrup like a soda fountain? Some kind of ICEE mix?
I know the machines have to be washed out. Always dreaded getting a soapy tasting ICEE. It happens occasionally.
What gives ICEE the smooth texture? That’s what sets them apart from a slushie.
7/11=Slurpee.
BTW I know today 7/11 sells slurpees. They sold ICEE when I was a kid in the 70’s.
I don’t know who sells them now.
Vintage sign. We always looked for these on summer road trips.
It’s made by ICEE but at 7/11 it’s Slurpee since they introduced it:
OK. I just remember buying ICEE. The bear and blue & red cups. Guess it was a different store.
Yeah, ICEE is pretty much everywhere other than 7-11, but a SLURPEE is a licensed ICEE. I always associate ICEE with K-Mart, because that’s where I got them as a kid. As far as I can tell, the coke ones are filled with coke, rather than some special formula. It largely seems to drink like a coke that’s just on the verge of going solid. Still a little fizzy, but not much.
ICEE wiki entry.
SLURPEE wiki entry.
They taste like real Coke to me too. I always wondered what those machines do and how the store refills them.
It may just be a freezer unit with a mixer blade. Just my WAG
That’s pretty much it. Depending on the type of machine the drink is poured in already mixed, or syrup and water are added separately, and it keeps it moving at a controlled temperature so the stuff remains fluid.
As simple as it sounds these must be well engineered machines or the cost of maintenance would be very high. Either that or those drinks are very profitable or a huge draw to the stores.
a lot of them just have input hoses for the water and syrup, and automatically add as needed. but the dispenser itself is just that, a chiller with an agitator. the agitator lets ice crystals form but prevents it from forming solid chunks/blocks of ice. More or less just like concrete trucks; as long as you keep the wet concrete in motion, it delays curing.
as for the flavors, the syrups come from the Coca-cola company (or whatever company owns the brand of flavor) but it’s very likely they’re formulated differently than what goes into the soda. They’ll alter the formula to account for the much colder drinking temperature. That is, if it works at all. I once asked someone why 7-11 only has these whack-ass flavors in sugar-free instead of e.g. Diet Coke, and was told that they couldn’t come up with a sweetener/flavor package which would both taste right and let the Slurpee freeze correctly.
Probably a combination of all of them. Regular maintenance will keep them running, but most machines in those settings (moving parts, compressors/freezers, customer facing, regularly broken down and reassembled by minimally trained employees (so abused) etc) means they’ll break down a few times a year. However, syrup is cheap. Prices vary (and not including the costs of everything else that the store pays to get the cup into your hand) but with their purchasing power, there’s probably 50 cents or worth of syrup in there.
For the purposes of this thread, would you be prepared, on a non-precedential basis, to create an emergency ad-hoc Slurpie-Icee equivalency?
Part of the magic was Mom and Dad giving me $0.10 to ride my bike down to the 7-11 to buy a Slurpee on a hot summer day. I know they were glad to get me out of the house.
And see, we were all about Slush Puppies when I was a kid in the 80s. I never see them anymore and I honestly don’t know why they were so much better lol
ICEE was also sold at Sears in the early 80’s, back when they had a candy department that sold bulk candy and popcorn as well as ICEE drinks. Cite: I worked in a Sears, in that department, for 2 years while in college, circa 1982-84.
Well, you made your own Slush Puppy and so could put in as many squirts as you could get away with (even though it was officially 1 squirt for small, 2 for medium etc. which made it weaker than the standard Slurpee IMO). So if they looked the other way you could mix and match flavors or get like 5 squirts into a small.
I miss the candy counter 
I also miss the candy/cookie shop at Hudson’s. Well, I miss Hudson’s, for that matter.
They had ICEEs at Thrifty Drug Stores when I was a kid.
I’ll only get slush puppies. As someone who really can’t stand anything carbonated I was kinda shocked the first time I had an Icee. It took my by surprise. I had to take a couple of sips before I figured out what was ‘wrong’ with it.
Do you guys remember, those BIG displays of little individually wrapped candies? Like…usually soft chewy ones. Like Brachs I think? And they had a little coin slot for you to drop in 5c if you wanted a candy. But like…it was on the honor system so there wasn’t anything stopping you from snatching one if you were a naughty child?
