The Spark Café
The Spark Café Ice Cream Truck
The Spark Café has returned to the Bentonville Square!
While The Walmart Museum is under renovation, the Spark Café will continue to serve the Bentonville community with top service and delicious Yarnell’s ice cream in the Spark Café Ice Cream Truck. It can be found on the southwest corner of the Bentonville Square, right across the street from the original location.
The Spark Café truck will feature the Spark Café popular hot chocolate and 10 flavors of ice cream, including the café’s exclusive Spark Cream and F150. Sam Walton’s favorite flavor – butter pecan will also be on hand. Custom sundaes, a wide variety of the community’s favorite toppings, and our most popular specialty sundaes are available.
The Spark Café is open noon-9pm daily. Come and see us for a scoop, or two.
About the Spark Café
Sam Walton loved many things: his family, his country, his business, flying, and people. But right up there is also his love of ice cream. Butter pecan, to be exact. Alice Walton remembers many happy memories of often going for ice cream with her dad, something special the two of them shared.
Becky Elliott, Sam’s secretary in his later days, recalls Sam calling her up to ask if she’d bring him his beloved sweet-and-creamy butter pecan when he was not feeling his best. Helen, Sam’s wife, was not thrilled with the idea and would remind Sam that it wasn’t good for him. But it made him feel good and likely brought back many fond memories. Helen, of course, understood.
The Spark Café Soda Fountain is a tribute to Sam’s love of ice cream. The café proudly serves Yarnell’s, a family brand made in Searcy, Arkansas, not far from the Walmart Distribution Center. Albert Yarnell, founder Ray Yarnell’s son, remembers the days of delivering ice cream with his dad to Sam Walton’s Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas. Yarnell’s was the very first ice cream Sam ever sold, so the tradition has been kept alive at The Spark Café.
When you visit, you’ll notice a flavor in the scooping bin that looks VERY Walmart: Spark Cream. Custom-made for customers of the Spark Café, it’s a rich, flavorful ice cream in Walmart colors of blue and yellow.