If you have driven the South Campbell Avenue corridor between East Ajo Way and East Drexel Road in the last several weeks, you have already seen the new fenced parking lot, the new signage, and the line that wraps the front door at lunch. The address is 5005 S. Campbell Avenue, the building is the same 5,900-square-foot freestanding pad that most longtime Tucsonans remember as Mandarin Buffet (and, before that, Hole N 1 Golf Pub), and the new tenant is BubbaQue Smokehouse BBQ and Tex-Mex Catering — owner Ben Levine's first brick-and-mortar after roughly six years running the Guero Loco's Bubba-Que food truck around the southern half of metro Tucson. Per Tucson Foodie and the Arizona Daily Star (tucson.com), the restaurant began a soft opening on April 16, 2026, then ran a full ribbon-cutting and grand opening on Saturday, May 2, 2026. Here is a fully sourced May 5 walk-through of the new room, the menu, the owner's path from truck to restaurant, and what a brisket smokehouse of this scale moving into 85706 means for the broader South Campbell commercial corridor. May 2, 2026 — Grand opening at 5005 S. Campbell Avenue. 5,900 sq ft — Freestanding building footprint. 120 seats — Indoor dining capacity at full service. 12 to 18 hr — Brisket smoke time before wrap and rest Where the Restaurant Sits 5005 S. Campbell Avenue is a freestanding commercial pad on the east side of South Campbell, between East Ajo Way and East Drexel Road, inside zip code 85706 on Tucson's southside. Per Pima County and commercial real-estate records aggregated on LoopNet and Crexi, the building sits on a roughly 1.08-acre lot, was originally constructed in 1989, and has roughly 5,900 to 5,980 square feet of interior space — enough to seat the 120 guests BubbaQue is now staging plus a back-of-house smoker line and a separate bar area. The corridor is a mile-and-a-half south of South Tucson proper and roughly six miles south of downtown Tucson; for buyers, the surrounding neighborhood band runs through Sunnyside, Cherry Avenue, and the Drexel-Alvernon area on the way out toward the Tucson International Airport submarket. From Guero Loco's Bubba-Que to a Smokehouse Dining Room The BubbaQue name traces back to 2010 and to original owner Rich Park, who started the operation as a small barbecue concept in southern Arizona. Per Tucson Foodie's reporting on the brick-and-mortar opening, Levine acquired the business from Park in 2020 and ran it as a mobile and catering operation — most visibly as the Guero Loco's Bubba-Que food truck — for roughly six years before signing the South Campbell lease. Park, per the same reporting, is still in the picture as a friend of the business; his name is the historical reference, but the operating leadership at the new restaurant is Levine's. The new building gives BubbaQue a fixed pit, a permanent bar, and the kind of daily lunch-and-dinner rhythm that was difficult to run from a truck. Levine has told local food press that the brick-and-mortar move was, in part, an opportunity to lower menu prices relative to what a food-truck overhead structure required. What's on the Menu Smoked Brisket (12-18 hr smoke, Texas-style, Signature): BubbaQue's signature plate. Per Tucson Foodie and tucson.com coverage, the brisket is rubbed, smoked for 12 to 18 hours over mesquite, then wrapped and rested on cold smoke to lock in moisture and the canyon-mesquite flavor profile that southern Arizona pitmasters tend to favor. The standard plate is served with potato salad, collard greens, and fresh Texas toast. Beef Dino Ribs (Limited daily, Sells Out, Show-Stopper): The big-format ribs that have, per the Arizona Daily Star, been selling out within a few hours every service since the soft opening. Available daily until they're gone — call ahead or arrive early in the dinner window if you want to be sure of pulling one off the board. Pulled Pork & Burgers (Daily, Sandwich Menu, Lunch Anchor): The everyday lunch anchor for office and trades crowds along the South Campbell corridor. Pulled pork plates and pork sandwiches sit alongside a smokehouse burger menu, with the kitchen leaning on the same wood and rubs that drive the brisket program. Fried Catfish & Shrimp (Tex-Mex Crossover, Friday Pull, Non-BBQ Option): The Tex-Mex influence shows up in the seafood section — fried catfish and shrimp, suitable for a non-barbecue table member or a Friday-night lighter plate. The combination of a Texas-style smokehouse with a Tex-Mex catering background is one of the things that distinguishes BubbaQue from the more strictly Carolina or Memphis-style barbecue rooms elsewhere in Tucson. Hours and How the Room Runs Per BubbaQue's social channels and Tucson Foodie's grand-opening coverage, the standard daily schedule is 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, with extended Friday and Saturday hours that push the bar service to roughly midnight. The 120-seat room was built to handle a real lunch rush, a happy-hour bar crowd, and a dinner-plus-late-night service block — not a traditional barbecue 'serve until sold out and close' model. Catering, which was the backbone of the business through the food-truck years, is still part of the operation; the new fixed kitchen makes it possible to run dining-room service and large catering jobs at the same time, which a truck setup cannot do reliably. Phone the restaurant directly to confirm same-day hours, especially on holidays and during the May-into-June desert heat ramp when local schedules shift. Practical note for the dino ribs: per the Arizona Daily Star, BubbaQue's beef dino ribs have been selling out within a few hours of opening every day during the early grand-opening window. If a dino rib is the goal, the cleanest play is a lunch arrival, not a dinner one — and a phone call ahead to confirm the day's pit count. Why a Smokehouse on South Campbell Is a Real Reinvestment Story It is easy to read 'new restaurant in 85706' as a small-scale business item; it is more accurate to read it as a 5,900-square-foot building moving from a long stretch of inconsistent occupancy back into a full-time, fully staffed, full-hours restaurant operation. The building had previously been Mandarin Buffet, and before that the Hole N 1 Golf Pub, before its most recent vacancy. A stable, daily-service tenant in a freestanding pad of this size on South Campbell is a meaningful reactivation of the corridor's commercial frontage. For southside residents, that translates into a new lunch and dinner option at a price point Levine has publicly committed to keeping below typical food-truck levels; for nearby small business owners, it means a higher-traffic neighbor at a corner that had been quiet; and for buyers and sellers tracking 85706, it is one more current data point in the broader picture of where commercial reinvestment is and is not happening on the southside. The 85706 Real-Estate Backdrop The southside Tucson submarket — broadly the band of zip codes including 85706, 85746, and parts of 85714 between South Tucson and the Tucson International Airport — has historically traded at a meaningful discount to the metro median, with strong owner-occupancy rates and a deep cultural and culinary identity rooted in Tucson's UNESCO City of Gastronomy heritage. Per metro-level data aggregated by Redfin, Zillow, and the St. Louis Federal Reserve's FRED series for the Tucson MSA, the 2026 metro median sale price has been moving in the low- to mid-$300,000s with average days on market in the 70s and roughly four to five months of inventory — a market with more buyer leverage than the 2021 to 2022 cycle. Southside zip codes generally trade beneath the metro median; the practical translation for a relocation buyer is that 85706 remains one of the more accessible entry-price submarkets in metro Tucson, and a long-vacant freestanding pad lighting back up as a 120-seat, 7-day-a-week smokehouse is the kind of small visible signal that street-level reinvestment continues at the corridor scale. What to Watch in the Coming Weeks Three things are worth tracking on this property between now and the start of the summer heat. First, weekend bar hours: BubbaQue's 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekday window already extends to roughly midnight on Friday and Saturday, and how that late-night anchor tenant performs on the corridor is a real-time indicator of how much demand the southside has for full-service dining beyond 9 p.m. Second, catering ramp: the operation came up through catering, and the new fixed kitchen materially expands what the team can run on a given week — large catering bookings for graduation, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day weekend are all live calendar items in May 2026. Third, neighbor activity: when a freestanding pad of this size relights on a corridor like South Campbell, adjacent vacant or under-utilized commercial parcels frequently become more attractive to additional tenants. Pima County permit activity along the South Campbell corridor between East Ajo Way and East Drexel Road over the next several months is the most direct public-record way to watch that effect. Quick reference: BubbaQue Smokehouse BBQ and Tex-Mex Catering, 5005 S. Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85706. Grand opening Saturday, May 2, 2026. Approximately 5,900 square feet, 120 indoor seats. Standard daily hours 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with extended Friday and Saturday bar service. Brisket smoked 12 to 18 hours; beef dino ribs available daily until sold out. Owner: Ben Levine. Originally founded 2010 by Rich Park. What This Means for Buyers and Sellers in Southside Tucson Restaurant openings of this scale do not, by themselves, move home values in any direction in any specific household's situation; every property sits in its own micro-context, and a single new tenant on a single corner is one factual update among many. The accurate way to use this kind of news is as one current data point in a broader picture: 85706 had a long-vacant 5,900-square-foot freestanding pad on a busy arterial corridor, and as of May 2 that pad is now a full-service, 7-day-a-week, 120-seat smokehouse with a long-running catering business behind it. For buyers actively looking in the southside band, that is a meaningful neighborhood amenity moving from 'closed' to 'open daily.' For sellers working on listing strategy in the same area, it is a current, factual market-condition update worth being aware of when discussing comparable sales, marketing copy, and the broader story being told to incoming buyers. Sources Tucson Foodie — 'Bubba-Que brings barbecue & Tex-Mex to South Campbell,' April 6, 2026, on the new restaurant's address, square footage, owner Ben Levine's six-year run with the Guero Loco's Bubba-Que food truck, and the company's 2010 founding by Rich Park (tucsonfoodie.com/2026/04/06/bubba-que-brings-barbecue-tex-mex-to-south-campbell/). Arizona Daily Star (tucson.com), This Is Tucson — 'BubbaQue opens their first brick-and-mortar, serving up juicy brisket and other BBQ staples,' on the May 2, 2026 grand-opening date, the soft-opening crowds, the 120-seat capacity, the daily 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. hours, and the 12-to-18-hour brisket smoke, wrap, and cold-smoke rest method (tucson.com/thisistucson/eat). BubbaQue Tucson — official Facebook and Instagram channels (facebook.com/BubbaQueBBQTucson and instagram.com/bubbaquebbq), on hours, daily specials, and dino-rib availability. Yelp business listing — BubbaQue, 5005 S. Campbell Ave., Tucson, AZ 85706 (yelp.com/biz/bubbaque-tucson-2). LoopNet, Crexi, and CommercialCafe — commercial real-estate records on the 5,900-to-5,980-square-foot freestanding building at 5005 S. Campbell Avenue, the 1.08-acre lot, the 1989 build year, and the Pima County APN 140-12-2150 (loopnet.com, crexi.com, commercialcafe.com). NeighborhoodScout — Sunnyside Park (85706) Tucson neighborhood profile, on demographic and household composition context for the surrounding southside band. Redfin — Tucson, AZ housing market page, on March 2026 median sale price and metro-level inventory and days-on-market trends (redfin.com/city/19459/AZ/Tucson/housing-market). Zillow — Tucson home values overview, on March 2026 median sale price (zillow.com/home-values/7481/tucson-az/). St. Louis Federal Reserve — FRED series for Tucson MSA median listing price year-over-year (fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDLISPRIYY46060). Pima County and City of Tucson — public address and permit records for 5005 S. Campbell Avenue. All data current as of May 5, 2026.