It’s about an hour after an international friendly on a picture-perfect Saturday afternoon — and about a half mile from Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, where it was played.
The match, featuring Scotland and Bolivia, brought a lot of people to the area for the first time — the type of folks local businesses are counting on to contribute to the massive economic benefit the World Cup is supposed to deliver when it starts this week.
Leña y Carbón, a Peruvian restaurant and bar at the corner of Bergen Street and Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard, is full. Customers are eating and drinking around TVs showing soccer coverage on Telemundo.
But server Zantzel Vasquez says it’s slow.
“Normally, at this time on Saturday night, we have plenty of reservations and a long line of people outside waiting 45 minutes to an hour to get in,” she said.
We walked right in.
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To be clear, Leña y Carbón is not an official sponsor for the World Cup, which opens in Mexico City on Thursday and comes to North Jersey next Saturday — the first of eight matches to be played at MetLife Stadium.
And Sports Illustrated Stadium is not hosting any matches.
But it is serving as the site of the Jersey Fan Hub, a 16-day run during which the NYNJ Host Committee is bringing the party to Harrison.
So, it does offer some insight into the central business question around the World Cup: How much will local businesses benefit?
On this Saturday afternoon, the answer was clear: Not much.
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The afternoon also offered a preview of another question fans will face: Should those with tickets try ride-share to avoid the approximately $100 NJ Transit fare?
The answer: A resounding, ‘No.’
Cars were being turned away from Sports Illustrated Stadium from the moment they got off I-280. Harrison officials were out in force, redirecting anyone who ignored the signs. Only familiarity with the town’s back streets got us anywhere close — and even then, we spent time mapping out where a pickup would be possible if the return route was blocked.
NJ Transit officials have been warning about this for months. On this day, taking the PATH from Newark or Jersey City would have been easier.
And this was for a match at a stadium roughly one-third the size of MetLife. A match that wasn’t even sold out.
The traffic still had impact. Vasquez wondered if clogged roads kept regulars away. She’s hopeful that won’t be the case during the tournament. Leña y Carbón has plans to go bigger — including larger screens — when the matches arrive.
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Maybe you’re not interested in the bar scene. Maybe you just want a quick bite before or after the match at a price point considerably lower than what you’ll find inside the stadium.
Maybe you’re just looking for a Biggie Bag.
The nearby Wendy’s has you covered. It has for years.
Sonia Ferrar, a manager at the location for the past five years, said there’s always a pickup in traffic during Red Bulls matches. There wasn’t Saturday.
“I’d say we were slower,” she said.
Ferrar said the congestion in the area may have been partly responsible. The fact that most visitors were newcomers to the neighborhood didn’t help either — people who don’t know where to go rarely stumble into the right place.
She was hopeful that Sunday, when Norway and Morocco were set to meet, would be a different story.
We didn’t get a chance to find out. We didn’t want to fight the traffic again.
