8 Things Rhode Islanders Do That Give Them Away Out of State

Home habits are easy to miss until someone from out of state points them out.

Rhode Islanders who’ve moved away may get a funny look or two for things they thought everybody did.

Find out which small giveaways show where you grew up.

1. Taking Victory Day Off

You take the second Monday of August off for Victory Day, and no other state does.

Rhode Island’s General Laws list Victory Day among the state’s legal holidays.

As of 2023, Rhode Island was the only state still observing it, the Boston Globe reported.

The state has recognized the day since 1948, three years after Japan surrendered to end World War II.

Arkansas dropped it in 1975, after lawmakers set a new list of legal holidays.

That same statute sets May 4 as Rhode Island Independence Day.

You’ll find most city, state and town offices closed, along with state courts.

Trash collection moves to Tuesday.

Federal offices stay open.

2. Drinking Coffee Milk

When you pour coffee milk, you’re drinking Rhode Island’s official state drink, a title it has held since 1993.

You make it by stirring coffee syrup, a few spoonfuls at a time, into a glass of cold milk.

Yankee magazine says the syrup is commonly made from instant coffee, sugar and corn syrup.

That’s the whole recipe.

3. Asking for a Cabinet

If you order a coffee cabinet, you get coffee milk blended with vanilla ice cream.

Yankee says other New Englanders call that a frappe, and people from away call it a milkshake.

Merriam-Webster lists cabinet as a New England word for milkshake.

It’s not furniture.

4. Ordering Wieners All the Way

New York System hot wieners arrive “all the way” when you order them with meat sauce, diced onions, yellow mustard and celery salt.

That’s the full order.

If you’re wondering about the dog itself, Saveur says traditional wieners are made with a combination of veal, beef and pork.

5. Explaining the Name

The name Rhode Island sends people looking for an island.

A February 2026 Rhode Island Monthly essay calls explaining that the state isn’t an island grueling work.

The state has nothing to do with Martha’s Vineyard.

The essayist also recalls a South African safari guide who insisted that Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate, founded the state.

A Brussels bartender named cheese as the state’s claim to fame.

You can’t make this up.

If someone asks where you’re from, you may already be rehearsing the explanation.

6. Buying Wine at a Liquor Store

The Providence Journal reported in 2026 that Rhode Island is one of a handful of states where you can't buy alcohol in a grocery store.

State law bars grocery and convenience stores from selling alcohol, so you make a separate stop at a package store.

The General Assembly's first proposal, in 1934, barred chain stores from selling alcohol.

That's a separate trip.

If you walk into a grocery store in another state and find wine on the shelves, you may catch yourself looking twice.

7. Calling It a Bubbler

In 2009, the radio show A Way with Words said bubbler, meaning a water fountain, is strongly associated with eastern Wisconsin and Rhode Island.

Wisconsin says it too.

Merriam-Webster defines a bubbler as a drinking fountain from which a stream of water bubbles upward.

The show's hosts also cited research from the Dictionary of American Regional English.

That research found the Kohler Company's 1915 marketing territory in eastern Wisconsin closely matched where people used the word at the time.

If you ask where the bubbler is, you're talking like a Rhode Islander, or an eastern Wisconsinite.

8. Crediting the Gaspee First

Rhode Island colonists burned the British revenue schooner Gaspee in 1772, more than a year before the Boston Tea Party.

The ship ran aground on June 9, 1772, according to the Associated Press.

Rhode Islanders feel slighted that Bostonians get the glory for the Tea Party.

That stings.

If you're the one at the table pointing out that the Gaspee came first, the timing is on your side.

The nonprofit Gaspee Days Committee runs community events in and around Pawtuxet Village, including a parade each June.

The committee calls the burning America's "First Blow for Freedom," and says three grievances in the Declaration of Independence trace directly to the Gaspee affair.

Bristol's Oldest Fourth of July Parade

Bristol's celebration committee bills its event as America's oldest continuous Fourth of July celebration.

The Law Library of Congress backs part of that claim, describing Bristol as home to the country's oldest Fourth of July parade, which dates to 1785.

The Boston Globe says the parade is officially called the Military, Civic and Firemen's Parade.

Bristol's Main Street has a federal exception for its red, white and blue center line.

A 1995 federal law, the National Highway System Designation Act, says the line counts as complying with the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

Congress signed off.