The Awful Awful is a classic Rhode Island treat. Here's how it got its name.

Rhode Island has a lot of iconic foods, and nearly all of them are a little weird.  

There’s pizza strips, where you take away what is arguably the best part of the pizza — the mozzarella cheese — to turn pizza into a stripped-down version of itself that somehow works as a perfect lunch or party snack.  

Then there’s Rhode Island calamari, the state appetizer, which in the words of The Washington Post became the “unexpected star” of the 2020 Democratic Convention when the state promoted its seafood and our habit of pairing it with hot peppers. It’s not often that an appetizer upstages a presidential candidate.  

Or we could talk about the New York System Hot Wiener, which this reporter recently tried to explain to someone from out of state with absolutely no success.  

But for today’s What and Why RI, we’re going to talk about a delicious Rhode Island drink: the Awful Awful.

“Why is Newport Creamery’s shake called an Awful Awful?” wrote one reader, who added that the question was just asked on a radio show she was listening to and it stumped the hosts.  

Why is it called an Awful Awful? 

The Awful Awful was born at Bond’s Ice Cream in the 1940s in New Jersey. The shop had come up with a drink that combined flavored syrups with ice milk instead of the ice cream one would find in a classic milkshake.  

A customer drank a 24-ounce serving and called it “awful big and awful good,” according to the New England Historical Society. Awful awful.   

Bond’s did what anyone with a success on their hands would do: They trademarked the name “Awful Awful” on June 10, 1948.  

How did the Awful Awful become a Rhode Island drink, not a New Jersey one? 

After getting the drink trademarked, Bond’s Ice Cream made two deals to sell the drink — one to Friendly’s Ice Cream in Massachusetts and one to Newport Creamery in Rhode Island, according to the New England Historical Society. The deals allowed them to use the name only if they didn’t expand into New Jersey.  

But in the 1960s, Friendly’s expanded into New Jersey, meaning they had to give up the name. They ran a contest for a new name, and the Fribble was born. Since then, according to MassLive, they changed the recipe three times, and the drink is now made with hard ice cream instead of ice milk.  

Then Bond’s Ice Cream went bankrupt in the 1970s, and Newport Creamery swooped in and bought the trademark for Awful Awful for $1,000, according to the New England Historical Society.  

They hold the trademark to this day and they're the last Awful Awful provider standing.  

"We are proud to be known as New England’s frozen drink of choice," said Jonathan Janikies, a vice president of operations with the Jan Companies, the owners of Newport Creamery, in an email. "The Awful Awful is long known as an ultra-special milkshake treat that has a longstanding heritage throughout New England."

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Where to get an Awful Awful

If you're looking for an Awful Awful, there are eight Newport Creamery locations in Rhode Island and two in Massachusetts.  

To this day, they are one of the hallmark menu items of Newport Creamery, featured heavily in their social media feeds. They also have a lot of flavors. Diners can choose between vanilla, chocolate, coffee, strawberry, mint, cotton candy, orange, bubble gum, chocolate mint, and mocha for a classic Awful Awful, or there's the "outrageous" version, which comes in Oreo, choc o'nutter, strawberry, banana chip and chocolate mint chip, if you're looking for a little something more.

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Janikies also recommended the new "Cookie Monstrous Extreme Awful Awful," which has cookie pieces and a little blue cookie monster on top.

A tradition that won't be coming back this year, Janikies said, is Awful Awful Monday, when it's buy one, get one free. He said Newport Creamery will be "keeping an open mind" about bringing it back in the future.

What and Why RI is a weekly feature by The Providence Journal to explore our readers' curiosity. If you have a question about Rhode Island, big or small, email it to klandeck@gannett.com. She loves a good question.