King Daddy Ice was started out of a West Campus beer store in 1990 by John Zamora, Sr. Back then, we only sold 40 pound bagged ice with our kegs. Since the beer store was the only store in the area that sold the large sized ice bags many of the local restaurants and bars would come in to buy ice when they ran out or their equipment went down. Eventually that grew to the point that we started delivering ice on all of our keg routes in 1993.
Through the rest of the 1990's and early 2000's, King Daddy Ice grew alongside the growing city of Austin, opening our first ice plant outside of the beer store in 2003. In 2011, John Sr. sold the beer store, the same year John Zamora, Jr. started managing the ice business. At the time we mostly did hot shot ice to bars and restaurants.
In 2013, King Daddy Ice purchased a small ice company in Leander, TX called Nameless Ice that primarily focused on ice service to retail accounts in the Hill Country. We moved into Nameless' larger facility and have been there ever since. It was this acquisition that got us into the retail business and allowed us to start taking on new accounts outside of the hot shot ice business, the majority of which is centralized in downtown Austin.
John Jr. opened King Daddy Distribution in 2019 with the goal of offering a superior delivery service to bars and restaurants with other products, starting with Rambler Sparkling Water but later that year adding Music Water and Towel Movement products to our lineup.
Today, while most of our business is still done at the bars and restaurants of downtown Austin, we have dramatically increased our delivery range to include all of the Austin Metro Area. We also service many other types of accounts including retail, construction, special events, sporting events, schools, television and movie sets, music venues, and more. Since 2011, we are also very focused on growing the 3rd generation of Austin born ice guys!