Hubbard’s Off Main

Set inside a converted historic music store in downtown Oxford, Alabama, Hubbard’s Off Main has served Southern-leaning dinner and lunch fare since opening in December 2013. The building spent more than three decades as a music store where local musicians gathered to talk shop, and today its brick walls and exposed wood beams give the dining room a warm, worn-in feel; the restaurant’s location across from the Oxford Performing Arts Center makes it a natural stop before or after a show downtown.

Chef Jordan Smith’s menu draws from classic Southern cooking while adding a handful of dishes the restaurant calls its own. The starters list includes a shrimp and grits appetizer built from Red Argentinian shrimp in a cajun cream sauce over southern-style polenta, house-made pimento cheese served with crackers, fried pickles in chip or spear form, and a firecracker chicken starter finished with a spiced sauce. Salads range from the Oxfordian, greens topped with feta, berries, and pecans in a raspberry vinaigrette, to a wedge salad dressed with blue cheese, bacon, onion, and tomato. On the entree side, Low Country Chicken, a plate of sweet corn, bacon, and tomatoes finished in a cream sauce, has been named among the “100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before You Die,” while the Shrimp ‘N’ Grits plate, served with a side salad, remains one of the dishes regulars order most. A fried catfish plate is among the dishes that keep showing up in customer photos and reviews, and the kitchen also turns out hand-cut ribeye and filet plates, chicken piccata over angel hair pasta, and a fish and chips plate built from grouper or catfish.

Sandwiches carry the lunch side of the menu, including the Big O burger, a Philly cheesesteak, a po’ boy made with catfish or shrimp, a mushroom Swiss burger, a Reuben, and a pimento cheese sandwich that has become something of a signature item in its own right. Sides lean into pinto beans, brussels sprouts, roasted squash and zucchini, a BLT salad, pasta salad, and fried okra. Many of the ingredients that move through the kitchen come from local farmers, a sourcing decision that fits with the restaurant’s broader identity as an intimate, independently run alternative to the chain restaurants along Oxford’s retail corridor.

The restaurant keeps a layered schedule built around lunch and dinner service rather than staying open continuously through the day. It is closed on Mondays, serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and adds dinner service Wednesday through Saturday evenings, with Saturday also bringing a brunch seating in the morning before lunch resumes. Live music fills the dining room, and an outdoor addition called Hubbard’s Out Back, opened in 2021, brings an indoor and outdoor patio with its own stage into the mix on Friday and Saturday evenings. Beyond the main dining room, which seats up to 100 guests, a separate historic dining room accommodates about 60 more, and the restaurant handles both on-site and off-site catering along with private rentals for family reunions, engagement parties, birthday celebrations, and wedding receptions. Online ordering is available through Uber Eats for guests who want the food without the sit-down experience. Catering, offered both on site and off, is built around full-service packages tailored to a client’s event and budget, with tastings available to help build a custom menu; the restaurant caters weddings and rehearsal dinners, bridal and baby showers, class reunions, and other family gatherings across Calhoun County and the surrounding area, with inquiries handled by phone or by email at reservations@hubbardsoffmain.com.

For anyone exploring Oxford’s food scene beyond the national chains clustered near Quintard Mall, Hubbard’s Off Main offers a genuinely local alternative built around a specific sense of place, both in its historic building and in a menu that leans hard into Southern cooking without feeling like a theme restaurant. It is the kind of restaurant that rewards a slower visit, whether that means lingering over brunch on a Saturday morning, booking one of its private rooms for a family celebration, or catching a set of live music with dinner on a Friday night.