SoulFull Cocina serves up Lincoln's best ribs, barbecue and more
The best ribs in Lincoln very well might be at SoulFull Cocina.
That notion, contained in the Nebraska Barbecue Council's recent rankings of the city's barbecue offerings , is confirmed by the first bite of a rib from the Havelock eatery — a perfectly slow-smoked to a perfect bite, not fall off the bone, of pork that's covered with a rub that eliminates the need for sauce.
Havelock's SoulFull Cocina has a couple more best-of offerings, or, to be more precise, one unique to Lincoln and one superb dish that's only available in a few other places.
The former is the smoked tri-tip, a triangular cut of beef from bottom sirloin that SoulFull Cocina's proprietor Chubb da Chef brought with him when he and his family moved to Lincoln nine years ago.
"Every barbecue place has brisket," said Chubb da Chef, aka Manuel Hurd. "I'm from California, so we do the tri-tip. I don't know if you ever heard of Santa Maria style, but they cook it on an open pit. ... You cook it over an open flame, raise it up high, you can bring it low. And so they cook it out there. I started smoking it, and it's just been my thing. So it's tender as a mother's love. It's really good."
Again, perfectly smoked, the tri-tip is tender, juicy and especially delicious with the mustard-and-vinegar-based Carolina barbecue sauces that Chubb makes fresh in SoulFull Cocina's kitchen.
The restaurant's name, and that of the food truck that Chubb started four years ago, also is rooted in California.
"I originally had a catering business called Chubb Rocks Barbecue," he said. "It's in California, and my friend, I told him to take the name, and he didn't want to take it, and I didn't want to take it because it's not the same. So I had to come up with something that kind of resembled me, which was soulful. And my wife, she's Hispanic, so we feature Hispanic, Mexican dishes. And so I added the cocina. So SoulFull Cocina, I thought was perfect — a soulful kitchen."
Chubb da Chef started the food truck four years ago during the pandemic. When the space at 6105 Havelock Ave. became vacant after the closure of Boxcar BBQ, he opened SoulFull Cocina in March 2023.
The superb side that's only available in a few Lincoln eateries is the collard greens, freshly made like all its offerings, and tender with pieces of pork and nicely spiced potlikker.
Also of note on the side-dish menu is the potato salad, made homestyle with cut-up olives and celery that worked very well with the ribs.
The SoulFull Cocina signs promised "BBQ & More." The latter includes fried catfish, one of the restaurant's most popular items, that, in Chubb's words is "fried hard," making it very crispy on the outside while preserving the distinctive someone-just-caught-it flavor.
The "More" also includes fried chicken and a series of "specials" that Chubb has created — the 'Stache, a sandwich of pulled pork, a hot link and coleslaw; Phor-13, a smashed burger with pineapple, pulled pork, coleslaw, barbecue sauce and sriracha mayo; a BBQ Sundae with pulled pork, baked beans, mac and cheese, coleslaw and barbecue sauce layered in a cup to look like an ice cream sundae; and a Chubb-A-Dilla, a quesadilla with either pulled pork or smoked chicken, baked beans and mac and cheese.
And there are daily specials that include wings, fried pork chops, spicy fried chicken and, on Tuesdays, tacos.
As is standard for barbecue, SoulFull Cocina can, on occasion, run out of ribs, smoked chicken and some of the specials that have been smoked for hours and can't be rapidly restocked.
SoulFull Cocina has a real barbecue joint vibe, with its checkerboard-covered tables, menu boards, painted signs, service on paper plates and boats on trays, beer garden and smoker (working away at 225 degrees) in back and a triangle hanging at the door for satisfied customers to play on the way out.
Suffice it to say, it rings a lot.
SoulFull Cocina, 6105 Havelock Ave., is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Everything on the menu is available for carryout.
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