Why Do Restaurant Ice Cubes Have Holes in Them?
August 13, 2026
source: Pexels
Restaurant ice cubes with those strange little holes have probably caught your attention at some point. You pick up your drink, spot what looks like a tiny frozen tube floating around, and wonder why restaurant ice looks nothing like the chunky cubes sitting in your freezer at home. I used to think there had to be some clever reason for the hole itself. Maybe it cooled drinks better. Maybe restaurants wanted the ice to melt faster or maybe there was some wonderfully boring food-service explanation nobody ever talks about.
The answer is mostly in the ice machine.
Not every restaurant uses ice with holes, of course. Commercial ice machines can make full cubes, half cubes, crescent-shaped ice, nuggets, flakes, and several other styles. Hollow ice is simply one of the forms you might encounter.
And even within the world of hollow ice, there are differences worth knowing.
The Holes Aren’t Added After the Ice Freezes
Nobody in the kitchen is drilling holes into hundreds of ice cubes before the dinner rush. Thankfully.
The hollow shape develops while the water freezes.
Commercial hollow ice can come in several forms. Tube ice is typically cylindrical with a hole running through the center. So-called bullet ice, meanwhile, usually has a rounded shape with a hollow cavity rather than necessarily having a hole that passes all the way through.
In machines that produce tube-style ice, water freezes around a chilled surface. The layer of ice becomes progressively thicker until the machine reaches the desired ice thickness. The finished pieces are then released or harvested and collected for use.
That process leaves the characteristic hollow center.
So the hole isn’t really an extra feature added to an otherwise ordinary cube. It is part of the shape created by that particular freezing process.
Why Some Restaurant Ice Cubes Are Hollow
The practical explanation becomes clearer when you think about how differently restaurants use ice compared with people at home.
At home, I can fill a tray, stick it in the freezer, forget about it for five hours, and discover later that somebody used the last cubes without refilling it. A classic household betrayal.
A busy restaurant doesn’t have that luxury.
Commercial operations may need a steady supply of ice throughout the day for water, soft drinks, cocktails, food displays, and other uses. Ice machines are therefore designed to produce ice automatically and repeatedly rather than relying on individual trays.
The hollow shape is compatible with efficient, continuous commercial ice production. Because the machine controls how thick the ice becomes around the freezing surface, it can repeatedly produce batches without relying on someone filling and emptying trays by hand.
One thing I learned while looking more closely at commercial ice equipment is that it’s better not to assume hollow ice is automatically faster to make than every type of solid ice. Machine output depends on far more than whether there’s a hole in the finished piece. Refrigeration capacity, evaporator design, ice thickness, water conditions, and the machine’s operating cycle can all affect production.
So the hole alone doesn’t tell you how fast an ice machine works.
Does the Hole Make the Ice Melt Faster?
This is where a little physics sneaks into your glass.
Heat moves from the warmer drink into the colder ice. The amount of ice exposed to the liquid can influence how quickly that heat transfer happens.
Because hollow ice can have a higher surface-area-to-mass ratio than a compact solid piece of similar outer dimensions, it may exchange heat with the drink—and melt—more quickly.
But there’s an important “may” in that sentence.
The actual melting rate depends on the size and thickness of the ice, its temperature, its mass, the temperature of the drink, movement of the liquid, and other conditions. A thick piece of tube ice shouldn’t automatically be described as fast-melting simply because it contains a hole.
In my experience, this is exactly the kind of tiny detail that can turn a perfectly reasonable explanation into an overly broad claim. Ice geometry matters, but it isn’t the only thing happening in the glass.
No, the Hole Isn’t Evidence of a Restaurant Trick
There’s another explanation you might hear: restaurants supposedly use hollow ice so they can pack glasses with less actual ice.
That makes a good little conspiracy theory, but you don’t need it to explain the shape.
Yes, a hollow piece contains less ice than a completely solid piece with identical outer dimensions. That’s straightforward geometry. But intentionally hollow ice exists because of the way certain ice machines form it, and commercial machines are selected for practical factors such as capacity, ice type, available space, refrigeration setup, and the needs of the business.
Restaurants also use plenty of other ice shapes that aren’t hollow at all.
So seeing a hole in your restaurant ice cubes doesn’t tell you that somebody is trying to pull a fast one with your lemonade.
Sometimes Hollow-Looking Ice Can Signal a Problem
Here’s the wrinkle that makes this topic more interesting: not every hollow or incomplete cube is supposed to look that way.
If a machine is designed to produce fuller conventional cubes but suddenly starts making unusually thin, small, incomplete, or hollow-looking pieces, the shape can point to an equipment or water-flow issue.
An inadequate water supply can interfere with proper ice formation. Restricted filters, mineral buildup or scale on parts of the machine, and problems with water distribution can also contribute to poorly formed cubes.
That’s very different from intentionally produced tube ice.
Trust me on this, the distinction matters. Consistent cylindrical pieces with deliberately formed centers are one thing. Randomly malformed cubes coming from equipment intended to make fuller pieces are another.
In the second situation, the strange shape isn’t a clever design feature. It may be a sign that the machine needs inspection, cleaning, maintenance, or attention to its water supply.
Tube Ice and Bullet Ice Aren’t Quite the Same Thing
These terms sometimes get used loosely, so they’re worth separating.
Tube ice generally refers to cylindrical ice with a central hole. Depending on how it is produced and cut, the finished pieces can look like short sections of frozen pipe.
Bullet ice is familiar to anyone who has used certain countertop or compact ice makers. Those pieces tend to have rounded ends and a hollow indentation or cavity. That cavity doesn’t necessarily continue all the way through the ice.
They can look similar at first glance, especially once they’ve been sitting in a drink and melting for a while, but they’re not necessarily the same shape or produced by identical equipment.
There’s a Lot Going On Inside That Glass
Restaurant ice is one of those everyday things that becomes unexpectedly interesting once you actually pay attention to it.
The holes in intentionally hollow restaurant ice aren’t drilled in afterward, and they aren’t automatically proof that the restaurant wants your drink watered down. They result from the way certain types of ice-making equipment freeze water around a cold surface and control the thickness of the resulting ice.
The hollow geometry can affect how the ice exchanges heat with a drink, although its real-world melting rate depends on several factors. And while intentionally hollow tube or bullet-style ice is perfectly normal, unexpectedly hollow or incomplete cubes from a machine intended to make fuller ice can indicate a water-flow or maintenance problem.
So next time one of those funny little frozen tubes comes rattling up your straw, you’ll know what you’re looking at.
Not a restaurant trick. Not somebody attacking innocent ice cubes with a miniature drill.
Just a surprisingly neat bit of refrigeration engineering floating around in your drink.