Braum's
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Stores is a family-owned and operated chain of fast-food restaurants based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It currently has locations in Oklahoma and in parts of Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.
The restaurants serve ice cream, hamburgers, sandwiches, salads and breakfast items. Each store also includes a grocery section featuring dairy products, baked goods, beverages, frozen entrees, meats and produce.
Almost all the food products sold at Braum's are processed or manufactured directly by the company; Braum's owns its own dairy herd, processing plant, bakery, stores and delivery trucks. It also owns seven farms and ranches totaling more than 40,000 acres (160 km²), including its flagship family farm in Tuttle, Oklahoma. Braum's describes itself as the only major ice cream maker to still milk its own cows.
In order to maintain the freshness of its products, the company does not open stores outside of a 300-mile radius of the home farm in Tuttle.
[edit] History
In 1957, Bill Braum purchased his family's ice cream processing business based in Emporia, Kansas, as well as its "Peter Pan" retail ice cream chain; ten years later, the Peter Pan stores were sold, under the condition that the Braum family not sell ice cream in Kansas for ten years.
Having kept the family dairy herd and ice cream processing business, Braum and his wife Mary started the Braum's chain in 1968, opening 24 stores in Oklahoma during the first year. Braum's brought products from its Emporia headquarters to Oklahoma for the first few years, later opening facilities in Oklahoma and moving the herd there in 1975.
