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 for a second year running, and, somehow, the tournament’s 1993 champions? Uh huh.
El Farolito, at the risk of using an overplayed phrase, is more than a club.
“You try to get your best team out there,” said 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 club 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 29-year-old forward Dembor Benson (shortened mercifully down from his birth name of Dembor Onasis Bengtson Bodden).
Brother of the former Honduran national team ace Jerry Bengtson, he 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, that the USL League One pro Fuego moved quickly to sign the amateur ace to a pro contract for the remainder of the season (before ceasing operations in USL League One four months ago).
Now, for the 2025 Open Cup, Benson’s back with his beloved El Farolito. And he’s doing what he does best, scoring 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 alone on the terraces draped in a glorious western sunset.
