Newport Creamery is a chain of restaurants in

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

and southern

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. 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.

History

Newport Creamery began with Samuel Rector's

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

dairy business in 1928. 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. For its first 13 years, the restaurant sold only ice cream, adding other food to the menu in 1953. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was franchised, eventually expanding to 33 restaurants. 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. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2000. In 2001, Jan Companies, a local Burger King franchisee, purchased the company for only $1.55 million. the company has 10 locations; eight are located in Rhode Island, and two are in

southeastern Massachusetts Southeastern Massachusetts consists of those portions of Massachusetts located along Buzzards Bay, including the cities of New Bedford and Fall River and their respective suburbs. Despite the location of Cape Cod and the islands to its south, ...

Awful Awful

The chain is known for Awful Awful milkshakes, made from blended syrups and a proprietary ice milk. 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". In 1948, Bond's licensed it to Newport Creamery and then to Massachusetts-based Friendly's. 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.

Media

Newport Creamery was featured on a 2019 episode of the

Cooking Channel Cooking Channel is an American basic cable channel owned by Food Network, a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (69%) and Nexstar Media Group (31%). The channel is a spin-off of Food Network, broadcasting ...

's '' Man v. Food'', where host Casey Webb successfully finished three Awful Awful milkshakes in one sitting.

References

External links

Newport Creamery

The Jan Companies
{{Restaurants in Rhode Island Companies based in Rhode Island Ice cream parlors in the United States Regional restaurant chains in the United States Restaurant franchises Restaurants established in 1940 Restaurants in Massachusetts Restaurants in Rhode Island Rhode Island culture 1940 establishments in Rhode Island