¡Llegamos! Union City Soccer Festival 2026 Brought the Beautiful Game, Great Food and New Jersey’s Latino Business Community to Summit Avenue
June 19, 2026
If you ever wondered what the 2026 global soccer tournament means beyond the stadium, Union City gave New Jersey the answer: an eight-block stretch of Summit Avenue filled with fútbol, familia, música, great food and Latino traditions. The beautiful game didn’t stay on the field. It spilled into the streets.
The Union City Soccer 2026 Festival brought together Mayor Brian P. Stack, the Union City Board of Commissioners, Cedar Stars Academy and the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey for more than a street festival. It kicked off the fan festival energy coming to New Jersey and reminded everyone that soccer does not begin and end at the final whistle.
It lives in the kids taking the field. It lives in the familias walking Summit Avenue. It lives in the música, the jerseys, the vendors serving tacos riquísimos, cotton candy, popcorn, flowers and entertainment. And it lives in the small businesses getting ready for one of the biggest summers New Jersey has ever seen.
With more than 10,000 members, SHCCNJ represents New Jersey’s Latino business community. Together with Latino consumers across the state, our community contributes more than $127 billion to New Jersey’s GDP.
That economic engine showed up on June 13 at the Union City Midtown Athletic Complex at José Martí STEM Academy and along Summit Avenue between 15th and 22nd streets. We soaked up the sun, celebrated our culture and stood with local businesses building community pride through soccer.
More Than Two Years in the Making
We didn’t improvise this moment.
Since 2024, SHCCNJ has hosted Countdown to the Game events at American Dream, preparing the business community for the day the world’s largest soccer tournament would land in New Jersey’s backyard. New York New Jersey Stadium sits just minutes from Union City, and with more than 1.2 million visitors expected across the region this summer, the chamber’s mission was clear: help New Jersey businesses prepare, participate and be seen.
Union City made the kickoff feel personal. One of the most densely populated cities in the country, it is home to families from nearly every Latin American nation. This summer, three of them — Brazil, Ecuador and Panama — play within miles of where we stood.
“We will come together as one big familia to celebrate the game, our culture and each other. Every goal. Every bite,” said SHCCNJ President John Lucas in our chamber’s official press release.
From the Cancha to the Grill: Soccer Was in the Air
That Saturday came in hot and sunny, the kind of New Jersey summer day that turns a street festival into a feast for the senses. Summit Avenue was filled with color: banners, jerseys, smiles and aromas that made everyone forget whatever diet they were pretending to be on.
Cedar Stars Academy faced off against Union City Soccer Club in the day's marquee match, with games kicking off at 11:30 a.m. A live DJ kept the avenue moving, kids enjoyed free rides, and a full lineup of food vendors turned the whole stretch into a fiesta:
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- El Asadero Mexican Grill
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- Las Marias Restaurant
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- Mis Amores Raspados Antojitos Mexicanos
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- Tacos Basilio Restaurant
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- Basilios Campuss
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- Gelato Fruity
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- Crazy Corns Antojitos Restaurant
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- Simply Bagels
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- Chilangos
SHCCNJ staff confession: we have a tacos al pastor problem. We found our way back more than once, and every bite was delish. We also made our way onto the field for pictures with the soccer kids, because some moments you don't just cover, you live them.
Tacos for a Senator, Sello M
U.S. Sen. Andy Kim stopped by the festival and left with a full stomach. He grabbed tacos from El Asadero Mexican Grill, the Delgado family’s four-location operation. What he may not have known: those tacos came from a restaurant carrying the Sello M distinction, awarded by Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and the Mexican Academy of Gastronomy to restaurants abroad that meet a rigorous standard for authentic Mexican cuisine.
A sitting U.S. senator ate from a kitchen recognized by the Mexican government itself. A well-earned taco.
El Asadero wasn’t the only Sello M honoree on Summit Avenue. Las Marias Restaurant, co-owned by María Guadalupe “Lupita” Nieves Auroza and Miguel Menez Diaz, holds the same distinction, and Lupita celebrated it right there at the festival. Las Marias is no stranger to recognition: SHCCNJ named the business its 2025 Business of the Year.
Two restaurants. One stretch of pavement. Two nationally recognized culinary credentials. That is not a coincidence. That is what happens when culture, craft and community meet visibility.
Mucho Más Que Comida
Summit Avenue was not only about food. A full marketplace of small businesses lined the festival, each one showing how wide New Jersey’s Latino business community really runs.
Biuchic brought accessories. Blossom Little Readers LLC brought children’s books. El Color de Mexico brought Mexican accessories. Negocios Hispanos Magazine brought the press. Salamandra brought an online candle shop to life in person. Genesis
Accessories rounded out the jewelry and accessories lineup, and Botas Monterrey El Guero brought authentic Mexican boots to a New Jersey street corner.
Every one of these businesses already has a home in Business Link, SHCCNJ’s free member directory and the only resource of its kind built specifically for New Jersey’s Latino business community. Business Link exists for exactly this kind of moment: it was built to give members visibility they couldn’t easily generate on their own, business-to-business and business-to-consumer, and to amplify their reach at a time when the largest soccer tournament in the world has brought a global audience to New Jersey’s doorstep. The goal isn’t just to connect Latino businesses with Latino customers.
It’s positioning them as trusted businesses for everyone, the same way any New Jersey company earns its place in a customer’s routine. An accessories shop on Summit Avenue and a corporate sponsor scouting local partners are looking at the same directory, the same opportunity, the same open door.
Union City was not a one-day moment. It was part of SHCCNJ’s season-long campaign, NJ Businesses Welcome the World, which spotlights Business Link members tied to the tournament’s rhythm, match by match and week by week. Each feature gives a small business something it cannot always buy on its own: visibility timed to a global audience already paying attention.
That is the real engine behind Business Link. It helps a restaurant, accessories shop, children’s book publisher, candle maker or boot seller get discovered beyond their usual radius, including by visitors coming to New Jersey for the first time this summer.
Featured: NJ Businesses Welcome the World
As of June 19, here's the lineup the campaign launched with, the Business Link members carrying New Jersey's small business community through the tournament:
- El Asadero Mexican Grill (Gold) — the Delgado family's four-location Mexican grill and the campaign's launch feature
- Otro Rollo Films (Gold) — recording our stories, part of the community telling New Jersey's narrative
- Paint 2 Smile — entertainment and face-painting energy for every celebration.
- Santos Flowers — floral artistry for every occasion
- S&A Auto Center — an ETP and LETS program graduate success story with two New Jersey locations
- Las Marias — from ETP graduate to 2025 SHCCNJ Business of the Year
- Ospina Law Firm — the bilingual, boutique law practice helping members navigate trademark and branding compliance during the tournament
- DailyPay — a corporate partner since 2015, giving workers real-time access to wages they've already earned, supporting financial wellness and retention for businesses across the state
Eight businesses and growing through the final kick and score, one campaign, every Latin American nation in this tournament cheered on by a New Jersey community standing behind all of them.
Leadership Showed Up
SHCCNJ leadership did not send flyers and stay home. They showed up on the ground all day.
President John Lucas, Board Chairman Luis O. De La Hoz, Chief of Staff Aixa Lopez, Vice President of Corporate and Entrepreneurial Programs Dr. Jairo Borja, Operations Manager Danilo Melan, events team member Danik Kean and Catalina Perico, an ETP graduate who served as SHCCNJ’s videographer and photographer, all helped represent the chamber throughout the festival.
Catalina’s presence tells its own story. SHCCNJ’s training programs do not just support business owners. They help develop the people documenting the movement.
More Than a Trophy
To every Latin American nation on the field this summer: this tournament means more than the scoreline. It is a chance to share culture, swap stories and watch the soccer sector in the United States keep growing, kid by kid, league by league, business by business.
It is also a chance for our communities to shine on a global stage and show the world what New Jersey already knows: Latino culture is not a footnote. It is the main event.
¡Vamos, todos!
Stay in the Game
Business Link is free for every SHCCNJ member, a digital directory that connects New Jersey businesses with the more than 1.2 million visitors expected in the NY/NJ region this summer. If you have not claimed your listing yet, now is the moment.
And if Union City had you feeling the energy, save the date.
La Feria de Negocios Hispanos, SHCCNJ’s signature business expo of the year, comes to Pines Manor in Edison on July 30, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Exhibitors, government officials, corporate leaders and diplomats will fill the room, 1,200 strong, building the partnerships that carry New Jersey’s Latino economy into its next chapter.
This is your moment, familia. Don’t let it pass. Ya sabes, ¡Juntos Somos Familia!
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