Hispanic Heritage Month: Best Empanada Challenge Brings Latino Community Together
Yunis Hernandez and Jose Rodriguez, co-owners of Sabor Latino II celebrate winning Best Empanada Challenge on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. Photo by AC JosepH Media
BY CLYDE HUGHES | AC JosepH Media
ATLANTIC CITY – Sabor Latino II was announced the big public overall winner at the sixth annual Best Empanada Challenge Fiesta on Saturday, Oct. 4 at O’Donnell Park.
The annual event that brings together many segments of the Atlantic City’s Latino community and others together was sponsored by the Chelsea Economic Development Corp. with El Pueblo Unido of Atlantic City.
The public voted on the best empanadas from participating restaurants in the Chelsea district from Sept. 1-30.
“Thank you for taking us into account as Hispanics,” said Yunis Hernandez, one of the co-owners, as interpreted by Cristian Moreno-Rodriguez, of El Pueblo Unido. “I was very surprised when I heard my name. I felt very blessed. We didn’t expect to win this year. Thank you to the community that supports our businesses.”
“This is a big help to small businesses like ours,” Jose Rodriguez said. “Events like this bring a lot of people to businesses like ours.”
Sabor Latino II also won the judge’s contest for best filling. Queen’s Pizza Palace, last year’s public winner, won the judge’s contest for best crust and the overall judges competition. Rincon Catracho was the judge’s competition for best presentation.
Some of the judges for the competition included Stockton University President Joe Bertolino, Bert Lopez, host of television show “Latino Motion” and president of the Hispanic Association of Atlantic County, and Maria Fernandez, of Sofia’s Hairr Design.
The fiesta filled O’Donnell Park with music and entertainment, along with long lines of people trying out empanadas from the competing local restaurants. Moreno-Rodriguez said the local flair and commitment was the main reason El Pueblo Unido wanted to get involved.
“We really got involved to promote our culture and our small Latino businesses,” Moreno-Rodriguez said. “More than that, we do it for the main event, the culmination of this month-long event. This brings out the community, the working-class Latino folks. We wanted to come out and celebrate the culture.
“We had restaurants from Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, so we have a pretty good mix of folks here. For us, this makes all the long hours organizing the businesses worth it. We promoted this in culturally competent ways, in Spanish and English.”
He added that the attendance made a statement for community members, who decided to come out and not live in fear because of aggressive arrest and deportation actions at the federal level.
“Despite everything that is happening at a federal level, we showed up today to celebrate our culture, to say that we are here and we’re not going anywhere any time soon. We’re here to stay.”
Alice E. Woods, vice president of Chelsea EDC, concurred, saying the event set an attendance record for the celebration.
“This is our sixth year doing this and this is our best turnout yet,” Woods told Front Runner New Jersey.com. “We had over 400 people and we couldn’t be happier with all of the people who are here.
“The Chelsea neighborhood here is mostly Hispanic, so these are the people who live and breath this work every single day. So, an event like this is really about community pride and bringing everyone one together. We’re proud to be a part of it.”
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