Award Winner Award Winning Cuban
$12.75Pulled pork, smoked ham, Swiss, pickles, mustard on Cuban bread.
Big Flavors, Bigger Memories.
Raising the Bar in Bar-Be-Que
Premium meats, scratch-made sauces, and sandwiches worth the drive. Tampa, FL.
Award winning
World’s Best
Cuban Sandwich
2nd Place Winner
International Cuban Sandwich Festival · Tampa
Raising the Bar in
Bar-Be-Que
Crowd favorites
Full Menu
Signature Picks
Hand-pulled, stacked high, and sauced to order. These are the plates Tampa keeps coming back for.
Award Winner 
Best Seller Notorious P.I.G.
$13.75Our signature mac bowl — pulled pork and sweet & tangy BBQ.
Alabama-Slamma
$12.75Pulled pork, bacon, smoked sausage, caramelized onions, Bama sauce.
Spicy Hot Texan
$13.75Beef brisket, pickled jalapeños, and spicy aioli.
Take Southern Luv home
Our Signature Line
Straight from the pitmaster
Made by us,
in small batches
Chef Essi bottles the sauces and bags the chips the same way he cooks everything else — by hand, in small batches, with nothing to hide. Take a bottle and a bag home, and the Southern Luv table comes with you.
Chef Essi Tadrus
Founder & Pitmaster
Kettle-Cooked
Sweet & Tangy Chips
Thick-cut and dusted in our own BBQ rub.
Small-Batch
Signature Sauces
Carolina gold and sweet heat, bottled fresh.
On The Shelf
Take It Home
Carolina gold and sweet heat, lined up and ready to go.
From our pit, to your party.
Catering Built for Big Days.
Corporate lunches, tailgates, birthdays, family reunions. Pick it up, let us drop it off, or add buffet setup — you tell us the guest count and we handle the rest.
10–1,000+
guests served
4.8★
across 806 reviews
7 days
advance notice ideal
Tampa Bay
full delivery zone
- 01 Corporate
- 02 Tailgates
- 03 Birthdays
- 04 Graduations
- 05 Reunions
- 06 Block Parties
More than a BBQ joint
Faith · Hospitality · Heart
That’s Southern Luv. A good plate is where it starts — not where it ends.
Faith
It grounds how we cook, how we hire, and how we treat every guest who walks through the door.
Hospitality
You're not a customer here — you're a guest at our table, treated like family every single visit.
Heart
We lead with giving. Generous plates, and a hand for the neighborhood when it counts most.
Chef Essi Tadrus
Founder & Pitmaster
Born from a plate of ribs.
Built for the neighborhood.
Chef Essi’s love for BBQ started at five years old — his first ribs at a gas station in Fort Hood, Texas, where his dad was stationed. He opened his first restaurant at nineteen and, years later, brought it home to Tampa.
When Hurricane Milton knocked out the power, Southern Luv fired the pit back up and handed out free pulled pork and mac & cheese to neighbors who needed a warm meal. That’s the heart part — and it isn’t going anywhere.
Read our story
Since EST. Tampa, FL
Our story.
More Than a BBQ Joint.
It started with Chef Essi’s first plate of ribs at age five, and grew into a Tampa BBQ family. Today that’s premium meats, everything made from scratch, and a table where you’re treated like family.
Award-winning sandwiches, small-batch sauces, our own chips — and a whole lot of heart. Faith, hospitality, and heart: that’s Southern Luv.
Family-ownedFaith · Hospitality · HeartScratch-madeTampa local
Read the Full Story
Tampa Says.
Real reviews from real guests. We read every one.
"Pulled pork sandwich was the best I've ever had, and my husband loved the ribs — fell right off the bone! Service was outstanding, even with a steady stream of customers."
"Came down from Boston with friends and the place was amazing. Essi, the owner, came out and chatted with us — the love for the food in his eyes was something else."
"The mac and cheese is as creamy as creamy can get. The chef came to every table to make sure the food was great and we had everything we needed."
"I had the Alabama-Slamma with BBQ beans — the best pulled pork and BBQ beans I've had. First time, and it won't be the last."
Pull up a chair.
Find Your Luv.
Open Now
8019 Citrus Park Drive
Tampa, FL 33624
Hours
- Mon 11 AM – 8 PM
- Tue 11 AM – 8 PM
- Wed 11 AM – 8 PM
- Thu 11 AM – 8 PM
- Fri 11 AM – 8 PM
- Sat 11 AM – 8 PM
- Sun Closed