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photo by Olaf Growald
Jube's Smokehouse
2 of 2
photo by Olaf Growald
Jube's Smokehouse
Nearly every day before he opens his restaurant, Patrick “Jube” Joubert logs into Facebook Live, points his phone in the direction of his jovial face, and delivers that day’s sermon.
“I got a special today — chicken, chicken, chicken,” he recently blasted out to his restaurant’s 5,000 Facebook followers, smoke from his trio of smokers billowing behind him. “I got leg quarters big as your hand. But if you want ribs, we got ribs. But we want you to know ol’ Jube can cook more than just ribs. You folks need to try this chicken!”
At a time when Fort Worth’s barbecue scene is becoming increasingly more crowded and competitive, it’s not easy for newcomers to differentiate themselves. One conversation with Joubert, one foot in the door of his restaurant, one bite of his food, it’s safe to say there’s not another barbecue restaurant in Fort Worth quite like his. Nor is there a pitmaster quite like this former preacher, whose fans and friends tune in for his entertaining posts, even if they’re not hungry.
“This is my congregation now,” he says.
Plopped down at a table at Jube’s Smokehouse, the east-side joint he opened with a friend and three of his five children a year ago, Joubert traces his footsteps from pastor to pitmaster.
“I was exhausted, just exhausted,” he says of his time pastoring a church on the south side called The Fellowship Church of Fort Worth. “I had a congregation of about 150, and it was pretty much just me running and managing the church.” He also traveled the country, preaching at various revivals and conferences and other events.
“Eventually, it wore me out, and I had to take a break,” he says. “I missed being home; I missed being with my kids; I missed cooking.”
During his time as a preacher, Joubert had a side hustle as a barbecue cook. In his backyard, he’d fire up a smoker once or twice a week and sell what he smoked: brisket, ribs, chicken. “Ironically, it was mostly members of my church,” he says. “They’d come to church, then come over to my house to pick up food. They were like my second family.”
His story takes a while to unravel. Every few minutes, you see, a customer comes in to Jube’s, and Joubert will personally greet them. Using a trio of smokers, named Black Beauty, Doc, and Cadillac, he cooks from 5 to 11 a.m., but that’s just one part of his shift. After he’s done cooking, he comes inside and visits with guests until the last one is gone. He starts a story at one table and finishes it at another.
“I was over at a friend’s house — this was after I left the church — and she introduced me to someone who owned a little building,” he continues, now at another table across the room. “She told me, ‘You need to open a barbecue place, and you need to do it here.’”
Here was 1900 S. Edgewood Terrace, in the Stop Six area of Fort Worth, in a tiny building with a long, storied history in local barbecue circles. Built in the early 1940s, the building was originally a country store. For most of its life, though, this tiny, one-room —one very small room — restaurant has been a barbecue joint. Old-timers will remember when it was Big John’s BBQ. For decades, it was Floyd’s BBQ, and the Floyd family still owns the building. Before Joubert took over, it was also the shortly lived Brown’s BBQ.
“This building has a legacy; it means a lot to a lot of people,” Joubert says. “I was nervous about going in here, to be honest with you. One of the Floyd family members still lives in the area, just a couple blocks from here. That was a lot of pressure. I knew I had a lot to live up to, a lot of expectations to meet.”
To say he’s met those expectations is an obvious understatement. Since opening last year, he’s wowed both locals and barbecue aficionados like Daniel Vaughn, aka Barbecue Snob, with his different approach to barbecue. He abides by Texas barbecue rules, serving brisket, sausage and ribs, and smoking them in all-wood/no-gas smokers — but his flavor profile is stubbornly unique.
“I use a Creole seasoning on all the meats,” he says. “Red pepper, sugar, a little paprika, sometimes some smoked paprika. It gives everything a full-body flavor, a little heat, a little sweet.”
His specialty is smoked chicken, stuffed with dirty rice. He also serves gumbo, jambalaya, and other Creole dishes. “That’s not something you see on the menus at most barbecue restaurants,” he says. “It’s a way to set me apart, but it’s also an homage to my upbringing, to my home.”
Joubert grew up in Plaisance, Louisiana, where his family ran a smokehouse. Instead of calling his spot Jube’s BBQ, he opted for Jube’s Smokehouse, as a hat-tip to his fam.
His childhood and teen years were primarily spent in three places: church, the kitchen, and the backyard, where he learned the art of barbecuing. “Ten or 11, I was in the kitchen helping make dinner,” he says. “By 19, I was in the backyard barbecuing all the time. It was something I was good at. Everybody’s got a talent, a gift, and that was mine.”
After moving to Houston, he devoted his life to another passion: the ministry. He studied at Houston’s College of Biblical Studies, then embarked on a decades-long career as a licensed preacher; he talks of someday going back.
“I’m not pastoring anymore, at least not right now,” he says. “I’ve been having thoughts about turning back toward it. But I feel like this is the road I’ve been led down. The great thing about this restaurant is that a lot of my former church members are now my customers. That’s why I call them my congregation.”
