Braums may be coming to town

The location of the building which once housed Western Sizzlin’ buffet restaurant on W.P. Malone drive has been sold, and speculation abounds as to what new business could be on its way to the spot of the once-popular Arkadelphia restaurant. Public county records obtained by The Oracle via actDataScout.com, a database of property and tax records for counties in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, indicate that the property was purchased by a company named Retail Buildings Inc. That name does not seem to say much, but a cursory search for the corporation on the website of Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston reveals much.

Retail Buildings Inc. is a company based out of Oklahoma City run by its president Elaine M. Braum and other members of her family. If that last name sounds familiar, it is because the Braums have a chain of fast-food and ice cream restaurants with over 300 locations in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, and the very northwest corner of Arkansas. An Arkadelphia location would be far and away the furthest southeast the chain would reach, over 100 miles from the next nearest store.

In fact, Braum’s website says that stores only open within 300 miles of their own farm in Tuttle, Oklahoma, due to their exclusive use of their own fleet of refrigerated trucks to deliver dairy products. Arkadelphia sits just 33 miles outside that radius, which raises further questions about whether they will actually open a store here or if they have some other plans.

“I have heard [about the apparent possibility of a Braum’s opening] from a lot of people,” said Clark County treasurer Karen Arnold on Saturday.

While nothing is yet concrete, it seems likely that Braum’s is on its way to shake up the once sizzlin’ Malone Drive.