Martin's BBQ Said Ocala Would Get Its Puerto Rican Roast Chicken 'by 2024.' Ocala Is Still Waiting

The promise Martin's BBQ made in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in 1962 was three words long: Asado, Juicy, Tasty. It went on to carry that chicken across the island and over the water to Tampa and Kissimmee. Ocala was supposed to come next. The company's own history page still says so, with a date attached: "by 2024."

It is November 2026. At 2601 SW 19th Avenue Rd., the wait is not quite over. Google Maps now shows a Martins BBQ there, with a photo of the storefront but no hours and no phone number. Would-be customers have started using its review section as a bulletin board. "Not opened yet," one wrote about two months ago. Another posted around Oct. 31: "But will open soon." Neither is an announcement, and the chain's website gives no date.

A lot with a long memory

The address has been several things to Ocala. City permit files name Ritter's Frozen Custard there in 2000, then a Natural Home renovation in 2006 and a Play N Trade the year after. A demolition permit followed in November 2023. The building permit for "Martins BBQ" came in August 2024, the same year the company's website had pointed to, and the slow work of a restaurant followed: plumbing and gas, electrical, air conditioning, fire protection work through the fall of 2025. The site work was signed off that December. The building permit itself has not been marked final in the city's records as of Nov. 1.

The new neighbor will have company in its own line of work. Big Lee's Serious About BBQ sits next door at 2611, which makes this short stretch an unusual place to compare two very different ideas of barbecue: Big Lee's smoked brisket and burnt ends on one side, Puerto Rican roast chicken on the other.

What Ocala is waiting for

The company describes roast chicken as the heart of the menu, backed by ribs, daily specials and more than 15 Puerto Rican sides, rice with gandules among them. It calls itself Puerto Rico's leading fast food restaurant and frames every plate as a piece of the island's food culture, which is the pitch it brought to Florida: sharing, as its site puts it, "the warmth and flavor of Puerto Rico." No Ocala menu or prices have been posted on the pages we checked.

One bit of confusion worth clearing up before the first order: this is not Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint, the whole-hog company whose locations are in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and South Carolina. Martin's BBQ is the chain with a chicken in a chef's hat on its sign.

We keep the address and status current on our Martin's BBQ Ocala page. Other projects in the pipeline are on new restaurants in Ocala and new businesses in Ocala.