Tiffany Negron is an entrepreneur, restaurateur, and the owner of award-winning Puerto Rican restaurant El Lechon de Negron. She began working in the restaurant industry at the age of 15, starting as a server, and fell in love with the work almost immediately. Hooked on the fast pace of business, the unique challenges customer service, developing recipes and cooking for a crowd, Ms. Negron stayed in the industry, making her way up to become a bartender and manager at several establishments while earning an associate’s degree in business administration at Union County College.
By her final year as a bartender, Ms. Negron knew that she no longer wanted to work in someone else’s restaurant, and she left to open the first incarnation of El Lechon de Negron with her father shortly after. Though starting with just a small food truck purchased with savings, she quickly developed a reputation for serving some of the area’s best Puerto Rican food, and in 2016, the business expanded to include a dine-in location. Ms. Negron continues to operate her original food truck while offering custom plates, empanadas, tamales, and other favorites for dine-in, takeout, and catering from El Lechon de Negron’s brick-and-mortar location with the help of her husband, Vincenzo.
El Lechon de Negron has been named Union, New Jersey’s Business of the Month and has won dozens of awards in local and national food truck competitions. Additionally, Ms. Negron is very active in her area chambers of commerce. Looking toward the future, she plans to open another restaurant and add another catering truck to her fleet, and hopes to open the United States’ first Puerto Rican drive-through restaurant within five years.