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Industry | Food |
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Founded | 1940 |
Founder | Samuel Rector |
Headquarters | Middletown, Rhode Island |
Number of locations | 10 |
Area served | Rhode Island Massachusetts |
Key people | Robert Swain |
Products | Ice Cream Milkshake |
Website | www |
Newport Creamery is a chain of restaurants in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts. Since its first restaurant opened in 1940, it has been primarily known for ice cream and, later, the "Awful Awful" milkshake. The company is based in Middletown, Rhode Island.
Newport Creamery began with Samuel Rector's Newport, Rhode Island dairy business in 1928. [1] Rector began as a wholesaler and started home delivery in 1932. In 1940, Rector and his son opened their first restaurant in nearby Middletown, where the company is still headquartered. [1] [2] [3] For its first 13 years, the restaurant sold only ice cream, adding other food to the menu in 1953. [4] In the 1950s and 1960s, it was franchised, eventually expanding to 33 restaurants. [5] [6]
In the late 1990s, the company ran into financial trouble, losing money, deferring maintenance, and closing 12 of its locations. In 1999 the Rector family sold the chain to Florida businessman, Robert Swain, for $7.6 million. Swain tried to expand the business's geographic coverage into Massachusetts and Connecticut. The expansion was unsuccessful, and was followed by contraction. [4] The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2000. [7] In 2001, Jan Companies, a local Burger King franchisee, purchased the company for only $1.55 million. [8]
As of 2023 [update] the company has 10 locations; eight are located in Rhode Island, and two are in southeastern Massachusetts. [5]
The chain is known for Awful Awful milkshakes, made from proprietary ice milk and blended syrups that come in a variety of different flavors. The drink started at the New Jersey–based chain, Bond's, in the 1940s. The name comes from a Bond's customer who called it "awful big and awful good". [1] [9] In 1948, Bond's licensed it to Newport Creamery and then to Massachusetts-based Friendly's. [10] The terms of the license mandated the two New England businesses not sell it in New Jersey, leading the expanding Friendly's chain to rebrand it as a "Fribble", and later changing its formula to be more like a traditional milkshake with ice cream instead of ice milk. When Bond's went out of business in the 1970s, Newport Creamery purchased the trademark and continues to serve the original recipe. [11]
![]() | This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source .(January 2025) |
Newport Creamery was featured on a 2019 episode of the Cooking Channel's Man v. Food [12] Where host Casey Webb visited several restaurants in the providence area, including The Newport Creamery and PVDonuts. During the episode Webb successfully finished three Awful Awful milkshakes in one sitting.
Massachusetts Locations [13]
Rhode Island Locations [14]
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Coffee milk is a drink made by mixing 1 part coffee and 10 parts milk, in a manner similar to chocolate milk. Since 1993, it has been the official state drink of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
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Brigham's Ice Cream is a brand of ice cream and formerly a restaurant franchise. Brigham's is sold in quart containers throughout New England, and was served at franchised restaurants located in Massachusetts until 2013. It was founded in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts. Since the purchase by HP Hood, its offices are located at Kimball Lane, Lynnfield, Massachusetts. The company maintains a strong regional identity, using regional terms such as "wicked" (extremely) and "frappe", and makes reference to events with special significance to New Englanders, such as the Big Dig and the 2004 World Series. At one time, there were 100 Brigham's restaurant locations; the last was in Arlington, Massachusetts, and changed its name in August 2015. The ice cream is currently owned and manufactured by Hood.
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Timeline of Newport, Rhode Island.
Edwin Thomas Banning (1864–1940) was an American architect from Providence, Rhode Island.
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