As of these last few weeks, the Providence Flea has been back at it over on South Water Street and so too is the creative collective of tee, onesie, and sticker makers now known as Parched USA (formerly Parched PVD).

Back in August 2019, I had gone in search of some of their wildly popular Mario Hilario merch (they had created an apron and a mug with an image of the Channel 10 Sunrise show anchor and foodie uttering his “Mmmmmm” cooking segment catchphrase AND donating a pecentage of the proceeds to Food Bank RI) and was pleasantly surprised to also find so many fantastic cotton, short sleeve t-shirt options.

They had everything from Providence, Coffee Milk (the Autocrat syrup fan in your life would ADORE, amirite ???) and Gondola shirts to onesies for the kiddos with images of the Federal Hill Pine Cone that hangs from the famous gateway arch that sits at the top of Atwells. (Yeah, I’d always thought it was a pineapple, until, that is, some Rhody history aficionado put hand on hip and haughtily filled me in on the 411 about the 401 landmark.)

Another thing I have to stress, especially if you’ve been down the novelty tee route before and experienced something less than stellar, is that these are incredibly soft, tag-less (those with sensitive skin will REJOICE!), and easy to wear.

Applause, Applause: You will also be thrilled to pieces to know that their stuff is made right here in Little Rhody.

Moreover, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some future time, Bill Murray (who was indeed spotted in the Ocean State a bunch of times last summer, I know this because lotsa people were tweeting about it non-stop at one point) was photographed wearing one of their t-shirts while out and about in NYC or something.

***To keep up with everything Parched has going on, please check out their Instagram.