"When people move to a new place, they build community around food." Jennifer Ayala, a professor at Saint Peter's University who has spent years researching Bergenline Avenue's layered Latin American culture, told New Jersey Monthly that in an April 2026 feature on the avenue, and it explains something residents of Union City already sense but rarely spell out: the avenue everyone still calls "Havana on the Hudson" hasn't been a single-cuisine street for a long time. Walk it end to end within Union City's borders, roughly Second Street at the south to the mid-40s where the city gives way to West New York, and the nickname starts to feel like a plaque commemorating one era of a street that has since moved through several more.
That's not a knock on the name. Cubans began settling along Bergenline in the 1950s, and by the early 1980s the strip that had been an Italian-American shopping corridor a generation earlier was predominantly Cuban, according to the avenue's own recorded history. The nickname is accurate to that moment. It's just no longer a full description of what's cooking, and Union City's own civic geography, cultural anchors, and restaurant rows make that easy to trace if you know where to look.
South of Celia Cruz Plaza, the Old Story Still Holds
Start near 15th Street and the story looks like the one you'd expect. The William V. Musto Cultural Center occupies a converted 1905 library building here, its Museum of Art holding a permanent collection that includes work by Enid Bell, alongside a Museum of History, a Police Museum, and the Union City Art Gallery and Concert Hall, all under one roof since the building's 2011 conversion. A few doors away, a stretch of Bergenline between 14th and 15th was renamed in 2012 for Erick Morillo, the DJ and producer who grew up in an apartment on the block and later became known worldwide for the single "I Like to Move It."
Head a little further and you reach José Martí Park, a small pocket park where men still gather for dominoes, per a State Department feature on the neighborhood, with QbaVa Gallery displaying Cuban-American art directly across the street. Nearby, El Artesano still pulls people in for café con leche and classic Cuban sandwiches. This is the part of the walk where the nickname is doing exactly what it says on the label.
Except even here it isn't pure. Argentina Bakery, at Bergenline and 16th, has been quietly humming through this same stretch, selling empanadas, custom cakes, and the sandwich de miga, a dainty crustless finger sandwich served six to an order with fillings like ham, pepper, and egg. It's a five-minute walk from the Musto Center, and it has nothing to do with Havana.
The Blocks Everyone Photographs Are Already Mixed
Keep walking north and you hit the stretch most visitors actually photograph. Celia Cruz Plaza sits at 31st and Bergenline, dedicated in 2004 to the late salsa singer with her husband Pedro Knight in attendance, and it has grown into what locals call a Walk of Fame, with marble stars added over the years honoring Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheco, Israel "Cachao" López, Beny Moré, La India, and news anchor Rafael Pineda. One block over, at 32nd and Central Avenue, the Park Performing Arts Center has hosted the nation's longest-running passion play since 1931 and opened a new exhibition space called the Gallery at the Park inside its renovated theater in September 2020.
This is the emotional center of the Cuban story on Bergenline, and it's also where the food starts contradicting the plaque. At 3300 Bergenline, one block north of the plaza, La Churreria has been serving pan con bistec and hot churros for 45 years. Owner Gloria Moreiro told New Jersey Monthly that generations of local families eat there, from childhood through adulthood, even after moving elsewhere. That part fits the nickname perfectly. But at 3403 Bergenline, in the same few blocks, Recoleta Argentina Baker is doing brisk business in dulce de leche pastries and empanadas, and at 3411 Park Avenue, one block over, Asador Campero is serving South American grill fare. Stand at the plaza and you're closer to an Argentine bakery than you might think.
By Kerrigan Avenue, You've Left Cuba Behind Entirely
The walk keeps widening the further north you go. At 414 38th Street, Abuela's Café serves Salvadoran and Cuban pupusas and traditional plates side by side, a menu built around a Salvadoran-Cuban cook's own mixed kitchen rather than any single national identity. Push on to 4212 New York Avenue and El Centro Americano Bar and Restaurant continues that Central American thread. By 4501 Park Avenue, Cortaditos has built its whole identity around the Cuban espresso drink in its name, one more Havana reference in a stretch that keeps adding countries around it.
Near the top of Union City's stretch, close to Kerrigan Avenue, Bonchon serves Korean fried chicken for pickup and delivery, its name meaning "my hometown" in Korean, a small irony on an avenue built by people recreating their own hometowns one storefront at a time. Elsewhere along the corridor, according to a roundup from Hoboken Girl, Union City's food scene also includes Mi Bella Colombia serving breakfast through dinner, Hudson Sushi doing Japanese and Korean plates, Josefa specializing in Dominican mangu and mofongo, Tradiciones Peruvian building fried rice plates the Peruvian way, and La Bella Salumeria, an Italian institution now 50 years into serving the neighborhood, a direct throughline back to the avenue's pre-Cuban chapter. Maria Mentiras Bar and Grill keeps the Latin end of the spectrum lively, with regulars and newcomers gathering through the week to sing and dance, and Vale's Kafe and Kitchen runs a pop-up dinner series out of a corner spot known mostly for its brunch spread.
None of this erases the Cuban core. La Gran Vía and other Cuban-owned businesses still give the corridor its flair, and Cuban Americans still own much of the real estate along the avenue, a fact the State Department's own profile of the neighborhood points out. What's changed is what sits next to that core. The Cuban wave that earned Bergenline its nickname was followed by newer arrivals from Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, and Colombia, and the avenue absorbed each one into its storefronts rather than replacing what came before.
Walk It Yourself
If you want to see the layering firsthand, a rough south to north route through Union City's stretch of Bergenline covers it:
- Musto Cultural Center, 15th Street, for the museum and gallery anchor
- Argentina Bakery, 16th Street, for the sandwich de miga
- José Martí Park and QbaVa Gallery, a few blocks north, for dominoes and Cuban-American art
- Celia Cruz Plaza, 31st Street, for the Walk of Fame stars
- Park Performing Arts Center, 32nd and Central, for the Gallery at the Park
- La Churreria, 3300 Bergenline, for the 45-year-old pan con bistec
- Recoleta Argentina Baker and Asador Campero, 34th Street area, for the Argentine detour
- Abuela's Café, 38th Street, for the Salvadoran-Cuban pupusas
- Cortaditos, Park Avenue in the 40s, for the namesake Cuban espresso
Ayala's line about building community around food applies to every one of these storefronts, not just the ones that match the neighborhood's oldest nickname. Bergenline Avenue in Union City still tells a Cuban story. It's just telling several other stories at the same time, in the same handful of blocks, and has been for longer than the name lets on.
If you're curious what else is layered into Union City beyond its restaurant rows, from its housing stock to its transit access, the Andrew Botticelli Team spends its days walking these same blocks and is always glad to talk through what makes a particular corner of Hudson County work.
