Where to Eat Lunch In (And Around) Newport, Rhode Island  

where to eat lunch in newport rhode island
When on vacation, I feel like lunch is often overlooked. We spend so much time finding fancy places for dinner and make reservations there, but what about lunch? James and I like to plan our vacations around all three meals – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Heck – sometimes we even plan in spots for snacks and desserts. What can I say? We like food.
Newport, Rhode Island and the surrounding towns have so many places to choose from to eat that it’s a bit overwhelming. Here are a few of the best places for lunch that we visited during our vacation.

Cru Cafe Newport

This is an adorable place with fresh food… located in a terrible spot. There are about 7 parking spots total (which are shared with 3 neighboring businesses), forcing us to park in a municipal lot that charges an absurd amount per hour. Be careful NOT to park in the shopping plaza lot on accident, or you’ll get towed.

The cafe instead has indoor and outdoor seating, but gets super cramped. Lots of people are running in and out for takeout orders. It’s BYOB if you’re into that, and they also have free water. The menu is pretty robust for a lunch spot, with lots of sandwiches and salads to choose from. I got the CRU Chicken Sandwich and James got the Maine Crab Burger (which was a fun take on a crab cake sandwich). We shared a side of tater tots.

One caveat is that it took about 40 minutes to get our food. Which isn’t normal (according to them), as their kitchen was “backed up” on a Tuesday at 2 pm. I hate having to complain and ask where our food was, but after 30 minutes I wondered if they had forgot about us.

The good news is that the food itself was really good. It’s made well from quality ingredients.

cru cafe lunch
Flo’s was my favorite of our lunches. We visited the Middletown location (they also have one in Portsmouth). It’s quite an oddly-situated restaurant, so here are some tips for getting there. Your GPS will likely take you past the back of the restaurant which actually looks like the front (you’ll see the big sign and some outdoor seating), but the parking is actually on the other side on Wave Ave. It’s a super small lot, but we luckily got a spot before the lunch rush. There is additional parking in other spots surrounding the restaurant, you just need to walk a bit. Then you walk through some tall grass and a wooden trail to get into the restaurant. Once inside, there is tons of seating- go upstairs or outdoors.
The food was ready super fast and was very fresh and not greasy (which I was worried about since it’s all fried fish). I got their lemonade slushie and a clam strip roll (which was loaded with fried clam strips- worth the price!) James got their Flo’s Fiery Stuffed Quahog (a huge stuffed clam) and a lobster roll. We appreciated that the lobster roll wasn’t loaded with mayonnaise (it actually came on the side).

flos clam shack lobster roll

clam planter

frozen lemonade flos

flos clam shack newport

newport rhode island clam shack

Coddington Brewing Co

We stopped here before checking into our hotel looking for a quick sandwich. The portions were huge – definitely worth the prices for lunch. And the curly fries were really good. I got the Coddington Chicken Salad Club and James got a daily special sandwich with grilled chicken, avocado, and ranch.

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.