Braum's Ice Cream & Dairy Store — Restaurant in Van Buren

I am a huge fan of Braums food and groceries. I have never had an issue with the product at Braums VB. I lowered the score because the service is very hit and miss. I believe the poor attitudes and low motivation is a result of poor leadership. There is a fantastic young man who works as a shift manager and he began to recognize my family within our fourth or fifth visit. He has the best attitude and when he is working you cannot go wrong. He works just as hard and right beside his staff and his energy permeates the entire staff.

There is an elderly white lady who must be a store manager or perhaps even a regional manager who came into the restaurant and berated that shift manager for some very benign issue that clearly had not interfered with any customers enjoyment of their meal. After dressing him down in front of a full lobby including my children she took a smoke break with another employee. They smoked and joked the entire duration of our meal and were still at it as we left the parking lot.

I used the ladies behavior as an example of poor leadership for my daughter to never emulate or tolerate as leader. In many cases when the boss is gone standards relax and service suffers. The opposite is true here as the evenings when none of the toxic leadership is onsite are the best time to visit...

Braum's is a childhood favorite restaurant of mine, so fair warning, this isn't an unbiased review. Whenever we would drive by one in Tulsa, my grandfather would say "there must be something wrong with the pickup truck, it's steering into Braum's again" while he turned into braum's to get ice cream. Usually when my parents were back at the house waiting for us to get back.

Well that was 30 years ago and Grandpa and Grandma are downsizing and don't need the pickup truck anymore. 2001 Chevy but only 93k miles, long story short I had to drive it back from Tulsa to Atlanta where my wife and I now live. Of course he never did get that problem fixed because on the way back I passed a Braum's and of course the pickup steered itself in just like it did when I was a kid.

Now you can get a burger just about anywhere these days but for my money nobody makes a good dose of childhood nostalga like Braum's.

It's a pretty unique place too, kind of half dairy queen / half QuikTrip without the gas pumps. Definitely a slice of mid-century Americana that is just hard to find these days. Definitely worth a visit whether you're a local or just passing through. For me at least it's a steering problem I don't...

My experience ... I'm here from Nashville (Bethpage) Tennessee ... We while travel go to every Braums that we can along the way because we do not have them where we live... Most Braums are are very consumer oriented.. However this one in Van Buren AR pointer trail really stink! I place our order end up getting an extra shake that I didn't pay for ... So I took it back and told the lady she turned to her coworkers as she took it out of my hand and said see I told you I made it... She didn't say thank she didn't offer for me to pay for she just turned around and started talking to her coworkers and threw it in the trash... I asked her for pickles to go on my four cheese combo... While she was rubbing her eye smearing her mascara on her face and after giving me the pickles she said it is $1.50 extra charge ... I asked her if had ordered a different burger and ordered extra pickles would you have charged me? She said NO!... Needless to say I gave her back the pickles... Very DISSATISFIED...