When Sacramento Republic, the Division II USL Championship pros, host amateur outfit El Farolito on March 18 there will be a favorite and there will be an underdog.
The gap between professional and amateur clubs, on average, is massive. Professional fitness. Support Staff. No day jobs. Organized travel. Budget. Salary. The list goes on and on forever. But in this particular meeting, one of 32 amateur-vs-pro contests of this year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup First Round, the Cinderella part-timers won’t be banking on only pluck, luck and hope.
El Farolito has a history deeper – and a bite meaner – than your average underdog.
Who/What is El Farolito?
Where to begin. A chain of inexpensive family-run Mexican taquerias in the Bay Area, numbering 12 at last count? Yes. Amateur darlings of the U.S. Open Cup, back for a fourth year running, and, somehow, the tournament’s 1993 Champions? Also, yes.
El Farolito, at the risk of using an overplayed phrase, is more than a club.
“You try to get your best team out there,” says second-generation restaurateur Santiago Lopez, who’s also the current El Farolito coach and son of the business and team’s late founder Salvador Don Chava Lopez. “If it’s for soccer, or if it's a person that’s going to be working as a cashier or the grill at the taqueria.”
El Farolito aren’t the first amateurs or semi-pros to have a local restaurant’s name splashed across their shirt. But there’s more going on here. The team is a magnet for the Bay Area’s latino community and its eateries draw people from all walks of life for work, nourishment and play. It’s a family, by any definition you use, and you hear that word often in the orbit of the club.
“To me this is more than just a team, it’s a big family,” said 30-year-old El Farolito forward Dembor Benson (shortened mercifully down from his birth name of Dembor Onasis Bengtson Bodden).
The El Farolito flag flown in faraway Utah during a First Round defeat of Real Monarchs in 2025
Brother of the former Honduran national team ace Jerry Bengtson, Dembor scored twice in a Cupset comeback win against pro side Central Valley Fuego in the 2024 Open Cup. It was such an impressive performance, and part of a four-goal-in-three-game overall showing for the striker in that year’s Cup, that the USL League One pro Fuego moved quickly to sign the tall, rangy amateur player to a pro contract for the remainder of the season (before ceasing operations in USL League One later that year).
After his play-for-pay jaunt in Fresno, Benson re-donned the yellow-and-blue of El Farolito for the 2025 Open Cup. He scored the opener in a 3-1 OT win over pro side Real Monarchs (of MLS NEXT Pro) on the road in Herriman, Utah. It was a First Round game that produced an iconic image of a lone flag-waving Farolito fan – who travelled 1400 miles with the team – standing on the bleachers draped in a glorious western sunset.
Santiago and Irene Lopez of El Farolito honored at the 2025 U.S. Open Cup Final in Austin, Texas
“I’m so happy and proud to be a part of this,” said Benson, who also contributed to a chaotic winning goal in the Second Round upset of Monterey Bay FC (of the Div. II USL Championship) – El Farolito’s third win over pro opposition in the last two Open Cups. “It’s not easy to get on a bus and travel all those hours to win a game against pro players. It’s been nothing but joy for me since this team [El Farolito] opened its doors to me.”
El Farolito’s 2025 U.S. Open Cup campaign ended against the same Sacramento Republic that they’ll meet in this year’s First Rounder. A slim 0-1 loss on the road at Heart Health Park saw them eliminated from the tournament, but their opponents – who eventually lost out to MLS’s San Jose Earthquakes in the Round of 32 – knew they were in a game that day. And by reaching that Third Round, El Farolito were crowned top amateur side in the Open Cup for a second year running.
Where did El Farolito Come From?
How did this delicious union of football and food and family take shape? It’s best we start at the beginning – so step inside the original El Farolito Bar on 24th and Mission, let its door swing closed behind you. Take up a seat at the bar.
In a minute your eyes adjust to the dim light. Order a beer and stay a while. You’re in the presence of American soccer history, the birthplace of El Farolito.
The 2026 curtain-raiser is a rematch of the tense Republic (1) - (0) El Farolito Third Rounder of 2025 Third Round
Tilt your head back and you’ll see, up above the liquor bottles, a trophy in the shape of a soccer ball. It’s the 1993 U.S. Open Cup, won by El Farolito in the days before Major League Soccer’s flash and massive growth and after the old NASL and its own flash and massive growth (and eventual collapse).
This was a time, before the hosting of the 1994 World Cup, when the game in this country was sustained by ethnic clubs headquartered in bars, just like this one, or social clubs. Gathering up after the game to share a drink and some food was as important as the result – more so in lean times.
“Soccer has been a part of our lives every day,” said club manager Irene Lopez, sister of Santiago and daughter of Don Chava. “Every single year is special.”
Her father opened the bar in 1983. It was a much different San Francisco than the one of today, and the Mission District was the heart of its Latino immigrant community. Soon after, the tiny taqueria started churning out al pastor and beef tongue next door. The original taqueria, most often described as “no frills” became a last-stop for late-night revelers with its 2:00am closing time and its Super Burrito, “the most life-changing Burrito in America” according to Esquire Magazine in 2013, among the signature dishes.
The original El Farolito Bar and Taqueria in San Francisco’s Mission District
It was an all-cash-business with no tables, same as it is today. The line is always long, but it moves fast. While he wasn’t helping perfect the Bay Area’s signature mission-style burrito, which Eater describes as “the size of a neck pillow,” Don Chava obsessed about the game of football in his native Mexico. He slowly hatched a scheme to start a team with title aims much like his beloved Cruz Azul.
Two years after serving its first manhole cover-sized Quesadilla Suiza, El Farolito – with a lighthouse-themed crest and yellow and blue jerseys – started turning out on San Francisco’s soccer fields like the legendary Boxer Stadium. Inside five years they were in the top division of the nationally recognized SFSFL (you might be surprised to know that promotion and relegation is alive and well in most of the amateur soccer leagues in this country) and they won that first division title in 1992.
Farolito Players celebrate the Second Round upset of USL Championship side Monterey Bay
The Farolito Bar remained the home base – the family table. The players would meet up there before away games. And Don Chava, after all the games, home and away, would lay out massive spreads of delights that spoke to his players of homes old and new.
“He never thought about the results,” Santiago said of his father, scion of San Francisco’s first family of food and football. “He just did what he thought would be fun and never really wanted any attention.”
Assembling the best players in the area – the likes of Colombian Jose Angulo and former Atlas goalkeeper, Guillermo “Grillo” Valadez and Samuel “Abuelo” Cid del Prado – could only have been fun. And in 1993, it was time for Don Chava to take his party to the national stage and our historic Open Cup.
How did El Farolito win the 1993 U.S Open Cup?
The tournament, and soccer in America, was different then. The decade between 1984 and 1994 were dark days. It was these very ethnic clubs, like El Farolito, that made sure the sport stayed alive and vibrant. The dreams and ingenuity of folks like Don Chava kept the entire framework from crumbling.
El Farolito – known that Cup-winning year for reasons unclear as CD Mexico – met another ethnic superpower in the 1993 Semifinal: The Milwaukee Bavarians. “They were so good, really quick on the ball,” remembered Bob Gansler, son of the former USMNT coach of the same name, who played for that Bavs team. “We didn’t have our best day, and they [El Farolito] attacked us in numbers.”
Dembor Benson poses with his family after the 2025 Open Cup win over Monterey Bay FC
While that Semifinal required extra-time and two late goals from the outstanding Angulo, the Final was a cakewalk. El Farolito beat the United German-Hungarians of Pennsylvania 5-0 at Kuntz Stadium in Indiana. The rout ended, after some travel back to the West Coast, like every other game did – and still does to this day: with the players gathering up at El Farolito Bar for a celebration of life and times.
Soon, El Farolito will take part in their third straight U.S. Open Cup. A game with 2022 Runners-up Sacramento Republic in the First Round on March (LIVE on U.S. Soccer’s YouTube channel) is a coming-together of two of the tournament’s grandest heroes. The Republic will be runaway favorites, but they were the definitive underdogs of 2022, when they loaded their slingshot and beat four MLS teams en route to becoming the first second-division side since 2008 to contest a U.S. Open Cup Final (which they eventually lost 3-1 on the road to MLS’ Orlando City).
El Farolito will be fortified in their hunt of further glories by a windfall of $50,000 that they earned last year for winning the inaugural John Motta Trophy as the farthest-reaching amateur team in the U.S. Open Cup. It’s added to the $25,000 they earned for doing the same the year before, in 2024.
Even with all the extra dough, and a fearsome reputation, El Farolito will still be the day’s outsiders – every inch the underdog. Frankly, that’s just how they like it.
The result won’t mean everything and, win or lose in March in California’s capital, you can count on food and a few drinks back at the bar after the final whistle. And you can bet that the Republic, their players, coaches, staff and fans, will be welcome too. It’s how Don Chava would have wanted it – and how his offspring keep it going, year upon year, with loving hands.
Fontela has been a ussoccer.com contributor since 2017. Follow him @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.
