When you take a trip to Providence, Rhode Island, you’re basically taking a trip to all of Rhode Island. At 1,214 square miles, the smallest state in the union is a pinch smaller than Dane County (1,238 square miles). Massachusetts is only 10 minutes or so to the east, Connecticut 30 minutes to the west, and the Atlantic coast less than an hour’s drive to the south. A crafty traveller can pack a lot into a weekend in Providence.
When part of that weekend is Thanksgiving, you have to get even more creative if you want to hit your food and drink targets. There are family gatherings to negotiate, limited business hours, and of course the omnipresent sense of being filled with every calorie on the Eastern Seaboard.
I visited Rhode Island — my first landing on New England soil — to celebrate Thanksgiving with family there, and specifically to help with my grandmother, who’s sharp as a tack but getting unsteady on her feet. I couldn’t exactly drag her and my mom out to every tiny-ass hipster-stuffed brewery in a three-state area, and my Google map, crammed full of points of interest, required wheels. As the assigned chauffeur, I was more than willing to escape with the rental car and ditch my family the minute their heads hit their pillows.
Providence is a little smaller than Madison in terms of base population, but it’s also snuggled up against the state border with Massachusetts. This gives Providence a metro population that actually exceeds the population of the entirety of Rhode Island. Armed with my own map, a recently-published Eater.com Heatmap of the Providence area, and recommendations I solicited from fellow Beer Advocate forum members, I was ready to go.
Kyle Nabilcy
Fountain Street is a great area to dial in on. Bayberry Beer Hall looks like a traditional old world outdoor biergarten, except it’s indoors. Glass-half-empty types could see it as loud and warm; I found it jovial and cozy. Sit at a communal table or the bar, and order from a menu of about a dozen tap beers. I enjoyed a Party Dress vanilla imperial stout from New Hampshire’s Deciduous Brewing alongside a luxe pumpkin brownie a la mode.
Just down the street from Bayberry is a strip that includes The Slow Rhode, a New American small plates kind of joint that’s more a bar than a brasserie, and very dark once the sun goes down. The Nashville-style hot chicken was worth ordering — a healthy portion of spicy-but-could-be-spicier dark meat, still very juicy. I liked the chicken liver toast with onion jam and spiced peanuts for the oddball PB&J reference.
There were a pair of beers from Bucket Brewery in nearby Pawtucket (where I was actually staying) on tap at Slow Rhode; a session IPA called Payce’s was light with a botanical note, while a Pilsner called Rhode Warrior was crisp and sweet. And I’d like to stop here and point out that Rhode Island is the state for pun lovers. There was a different pun on Rhode/road for every day of my visit. And thank god Bucket made the “there once was a man from” reference, so I don’t have to.
Anyway, right next door to the Slow Rhode sits another heavily recommended destination, Long Live Beerworks. While the outdoor seating is a welcome bonus, Long Live is still a tiny shop, very crowded on a Friday night — Black or otherwise, I’d imagine. Half of the day’s beers had already run dry, but a Mosaic IPA (Attitude) was superb, and though the bartender was oddly and conspicuously coy about the hops in the double IPA (Hopeless Romantic), it was quite good, sweet and crushable. Candy Ghosts, a heavily-fruited kettle sour with lactose new to draft that day, was a straight-up quencher. Cute Pac-Man references, too. I’d tell anyone visiting the Providence area to spend a good bit of time at Long Live.
If you know me, though, you know that anytime I travel, I’m heading straight for the nearest wacky doughnut shop. Knead Doughnuts is a young operation, but my Providence family said it was worth a stop. I loved the jam-filled PB&J, as well as the tart cranberry glazed ring with a sprinkling of sweet pecan crumble.
To keep my ring-shaped intake balanced, I also hit up Rebelle Artisan Bagels for the savory part of my circular meal. The bagels are classic and often run out; the dozen-strong crowd at opening was as solid a testament to the shop as the excellent lox on everything sandwich.
These were just the places I checked out on my own; I toted my family to a number of destinations with broader appeal. Murphy’s Law is an entirely unspecial “Irish” pub attached to a Pawtucket hotel, but I swear that even with my limited New England experience, it serves what might be some of the best New England clam chowder I’ll ever have. Don’t write it off if you happen to stay there.
Kyle Nabilcy
We visited Plymouth (yep, saw the rock), and swung down to New Bedford for the Whaling Museum. Just down the street from the museum, the Moby Dick Brewing Company makes decent traditional American brewpub-style beers but also a terrific fish and chips with fried cod. Another day, a trip to Newport to see Vanderbilt mansions and the Atlantic sunset satisfied my appetite in the form of the Matunuck Oyster Bar in nearby Kingstown.
Don’t try to avoid the valet parking, there’s no curbs this close to the coast. You’ll want to order a stuffie, and the clear chowder (this will all make sense when you get there) and oh yeah, the lobster roll. Accompany it like a real goober of a tourist (like me, in other words) with a Narragansett lager, and you’ll be happy as, well, maybe not the clams that just got eaten, but definitely as happy as some other clams.
And all this, without even trying to get up to the big-hype breweries in Massachusetts like Trillium and Tree House. The state is small, and Providence seems like all there is to it, but with minimal travel required, there are plenty of good reasons to cross the Rhode. See? The puns just happen here.
