Soul & Smoke Opens Evanston Flagship With Oxtail Cigars and No Outside Investors

Soul & Smoke is opening its first full-service restaurant on September 1, a 175-seat flagship at 1601 Payne St. in Evanston that pairs the barbecue brand's bestselling brisket with new fine-dining dishes like an oxtail cigar and a grilled halibut collar in curry sauce. The Black- and woman-owned business, run by chef D’Andre Carter and CEO and sommelier Heather Bublick, has grown from a catering startup to four locations around Chicago. The Evanston building carries its own weight of local history: it once housed the fleet of Robinson Enterprises, described as one of the first and largest Black-owned transportation companies in the country.

As reported by the Chicago Tribune, Carter and Bublick bought the building in February 2020 after moving their operation into it back in 2016, and Robinson Enterprises sold them the property. The family patriarch behind Robinson Enterprises died in 2019, and Evanston's Fifth Ward — where the flagship now sits — is home to the nation's first municipal reparations program, according to the Tribune's reporting. The couple has leaned into that history rather than sand it down: the restaurant will display a Bear Champ mural featuring a Robinson bus, along with other art depicting the building and community.

A Building With a Story to Tell

The flagship operates inside a century-old barn, and renovations to bring it up to code included an exhaust hood, a fire sprinkler system, and a new roof. Soul & Smoke also experienced COVID-19 closures after buying the building, a setback that delayed the flagship's debut for years. WTTW's coverage of the project adds further texture to the space's design: the entry area includes an original barn door painted by Dwight White featuring a milk bottle, a nod to the building's 100-year-old origin as a dairy, according to WTTW.

Inside, the dining room features commissioned pieces including a gold-leaf work by Guy Philoche titled “Do You See Us Now” and a continuous-line drawing by Raspy Rivera honoring neighborhood advocacy for a local school, per the same WTTW account. A separate mural, Soul & Fire, was created by Bianca Pastel. Bublick has said the neighborhood's history of disinvestment shaped where they chose to build, according to Salon.

From Underground Pop-Up to Full-Service Menu

Carter and Bublick met while working at the Michelin-starred restaurant Moto in Fulton Market, and Bublick brings fine-dining service and wine experience from her time at the Michelin-starred Tru, complementing Carter's background as Moto's executive sous chef, according to the Illinois Restaurant Association. The pair's Evanston roots go back further still: they launched Feast & Imbibe in 2012–2013 as an underground pop-up tasting-dinner series before expanding into catering, according to Time Out. Bublick has described the flagship as a way to combine that fine-dining background with barbecue and soul food, per the Tribune.

The flagship will run two menus, with fine dining served at dinner and familiar favorites available all day. Carter, who grew up eating Chicago-style smoked rib tips and spicy hot link sausage, told the Tribune he wants the restaurant to work equally well for a customer ordering a rib tip combo and one ordering oysters and steak. He also makes a rib tip and hot link variation using heritage Duroc pork, and has said the business has felt the effects of tariffs.

The Dishes Behind the Menu

The signature new dish is an oxtail cigar — hickory-smoked beef oxtail wrapped in bread, covered in braised collard greens, garnished with black and white sesame seeds and finished with Carter's original barbecue sauce. Carter has credited the late chef Homaro Cantu, his mentor, as inspiration for the dish. The grilled halibut collar with curry sauce is based on a recipe from Genean Jeanty. Desserts, curated by Casey Doody and made in-house by Janice Espino, include sweet potato pie built from roasted sweet potato in a graham cracker crust with torched meringue, along with chocolate Swiss roll and peach cobbler.

Barbecue remains the anchor: the flagship will have two 10-foot-long red wood-burning offset smokers, built by A.N. Bewley, running on hickory and cherry wood to produce the bestselling brisket that has followed the brand since a 2021 Chicago Tribune review named it the city's best. Carter has called Soul & Smoke his dream restaurant. The space also converted its old event space and will include a chef's counter and outdoor seating, with reservations available.

Drinks, Sports and Sound

The beverage program focuses on women-owned and Black, Indigenous and people-of-color producers and businesses, according to the Tribune's reporting. The bar will pour Beer for the Soul, made with Sketchbook, on draft for the first time, and the boxing-gloved bear character on that beer was created by JC Rivera. Cocktails will include a Long Island iced tea and a lychee martini, alongside iced teas, house-made lemonade, slushies, and a Sprecher Brewery root beer float that Carter added in memory of his late brother's favorite soda.

Television will stay limited by design: Soul & Smoke plans to show only the biggest finals games of any sport live, along with Michael Jordan-era Bulls basketball games. The soundtrack will shift from R&B during the day to more hip-hop at night. Bublick has said the business carries no outside investors, a distinction that sets the expansion apart from many restaurant groups scaling to multiple locations.

Mutual Aid Built Into the Business

Community relief has been part of Soul & Smoke's identity since the pandemic, when the company pivoted from corporate catering to takeout and partnered with World Central Kitchen and the Evanston Community Foundation to distribute more than 250,000 free meals across Chicagoland without laying off staff, according to Better Magazine. Carter continues to serve on the World Central Kitchen Chef Corps. That ethos was formalized last October, when Carter and Bublick launched the Soul & Smoke Foundation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and installed an upgraded, 24/7 commercial-grade community fridge outside the Payne Street building in partnership with Chicago Chefs Cook and equipment supplier Boelter, per the Windy City Times. The fridge lets community members and guest chefs both donate and access free meals and groceries.

The Evanston Chamber of Commerce named Carter and Bublick its Businesspersons of the Year in February 2021, citing their entrepreneurial resilience and hunger-relief work, according to The Daily Northwestern. The brand's growth has extended beyond Evanston, too: in May 2023, Chicago's Department of Planning and Development awarded Soul & Smoke a $500,000 Community Development Grant to build a permanent indoor restaurant, bar, and outdoor event venue at its Rockwell on the River location in Avondale, funding kitchen hoods, a wood smoker and a riverfront pergola, according to North Branch Works. Soul & Smoke's footprint also includes a stand at Soldier Field, part of what has grown into a four-location operation across Chicago before the Evanston flagship's opening this week.