Garden City Is Losing Newport Creamery in December. Its Replacements Got There First.

Newport Creamery is still serving cones at Garden City Center this month, the same stand-alone building it has occupied for more than sixty years. Walk a few hundred feet in either direction, though, and the plaza around it already looks different than it did a year ago. The old Chico's storefront is now three separate businesses. The former Boston Market space has new signage. Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza is gone and something else is moving in behind it.

The easy read on Newport Creamery's closing is a familiar one: beloved local spot loses its lease, corporate landlord tears it down, neighborhood loses a piece of itself. That story isn't wrong, but it skips the part that actually matters if you shop or eat at Garden City regularly. The Creamery's lease doesn't expire until December 31, 2026, and the site won't reopen with anything at all until sometime after that. Meanwhile, three of the four businesses meant to round out this new era of the plaza are either already open or scheduled to open before the Creamery even serves its last scoop. The changeover isn't a single swap. It's been running in the background for close to two years, in pieces, on staggered timelines that never lined up into one visible moment.

The Order Things Actually Happened In

The sequence starts in the old Chico's building, not at Newport Creamery. By fall 2025, that space had been rebuilt into three tenants: Kendra Scott, J. McLaughlin, and PolkaDog Bakery, according to a report from Turn to 10. That's roughly a year before Newport Creamery's lease even runs out.

Then, in January 2026, WPRI reported that four restaurants were headed to the plaza within the year: Anna's Taqueria, Sally's Apizza, Lanner Noodles, and PopUp Bagels. Anna's Taqueria, the Boston chain's first Rhode Island location and its 13th overall, was slated to open within a few months in the former Boston Market space across from Whole Foods on Sockanosset Cross Road. Sally's Apizza was set to take the former Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza spot later in 2026. PopUp Bagels, also a first-in-Rhode-Island location, was confirmed around the same time by Turn to 10 without a firm opening date. Lanner Noodles, the slowest of the four to land, isn't projected to open until early 2027.

Here's the plaza's changeover laid out by timing rather than by name:

Read down that list in order and the pattern is obvious: by the time Newport Creamery actually locks its doors, most of the plaza's new tenants will have already been open for the better part of a year. The one closure everyone's been talking about isn't creating a gap. It's arriving after the gap has already been filled somewhere else on the same property.

What Closes in December, and What Comes After It

Newport Creamery has been a fixture at Garden City for more than sixty years, and its exit is the part of this story that's actually final. The chain confirmed in late 2025 that Garden City's owner, WS Development, would not renew its lease, and Cranston's Development Plan Review Committee has since approved WS Development's application to demolish the building once the Creamery closes, according to WPRI. The approved plan calls for a 23,500-square-foot building with room for at least seven storefronts. No retailers have been named publicly.

What that means for anyone who's used the Creamery as a landmark: the building itself won't survive this. Newport Creamery is reportedly looking at other locations within Cranston, though nothing has been confirmed. The chain still operates other locations across Rhode Island and Massachusetts, so this isn't the brand disappearing from the state, just from this specific corner of Garden City. If you're the kind of regular who stopped in after Little League games or used the drive-through window on the way home from the mall, this winter is genuinely the end of that specific routine. What replaces the building physically won't exist for a while. WS Development still has to demolish the current structure and build out a space more than three times the footprint of most single-tenant restaurants before anyone leases a storefront there.

The Corner That Already Turned Over Once

The Newport Creamery closing gets the attention because it's the name people recognize, but it's actually the third domino in a sequence that started somewhere else on the property. The Chico's building didn't sit empty for long before becoming three separate tenants. The Boston Market space became Anna's Taqueria. Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza's old spot is becoming Sally's Apizza.

The most complicated chain of turnover, though, traces back to a fire. Applebee's building caught fire in October 2024, badly enough that the structure was later deemed a total loss and demolished. Bistro 22, next door, sustained damage from that same fire and closed as a result. Lanner Noodles, a Boston-based noodle bar making its first location outside Massachusetts, is now set to take that spot near Chaska in early 2027, according to reporting from WhatsGoingOnInRhodeIsland. Applebee's itself isn't gone from the area. The chain is relocating its Cranston location across the street to Chapel View, so the restaurant survives even though its old building didn't.

Strip away the individual names and the shape of the last two years becomes clear. One fire, one expired lease, and one national retailer's pullback set off a chain of vacancies that Garden City has been filling on a rolling basis rather than all at once. Newport Creamery's closing fits into that same pattern. It's not an isolated loss. It's the next link in a sequence that's been running since at least 2024.

What Doesn't Change This Season

For everything turning over storefront by storefront, the parts of Garden City that don't depend on any single tenant have stayed consistent:

• The summer concert series runs Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. from June through August at the gazebo, free to attend.
• A Sunday farmers market, organized by RI Night Market and Rhody Foody, has run seasonally at the gazebo, featuring local farmers, food trucks, and a beer garden.
• Fall brings seasonal harvest activities on the green.
• December brings a tree lighting and holiday stroll.
• Salsa classes and fitness sessions have run seasonally in warmer months, also centered on the gazebo green space.

None of that depends on which chain occupies the old Chico's building or what eventually goes into the lot where Newport Creamery used to stand. The gazebo and the green space around it are the one part of Garden City that isn't waiting on a construction timeline.

A Few Straight Answers

Is Newport Creamery already closed? No. Its lease runs through December 31, 2026, so it's still open as of this writing.

What's going into the Newport Creamery building? Nothing has been announced. The approved plan is for a 23,500-square-foot building with at least seven storefronts, but tenants haven't been named.

Is Newport Creamery leaving Rhode Island entirely? No. The chain operates other locations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and has reportedly been looking at other Cranston sites, though nothing is confirmed.

When does Lanner Noodles open? Early 2027 is the timeline reported so far, tied to the space near Chaska that Bistro 22 vacated.

Garden City has always been a place people return to out of habit more than novelty, the gazebo concerts, the Sunday market, the after-dinner walk past the same storefronts. That habit is worth paying attention to right now, because the storefronts themselves are mid-turnover in a way that's easy to miss if you're only checking in once a season. If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually offers day to day, not just what's for sale in it, our Garden City neighborhood guide is a good next stop.

Curious how a changing commercial corner like this affects the homes around it, or just want a second set of local eyes on what's coming next in Cranston? Lorraine Perri would love to help. Let's Connect.