Piñata King on Airline near the North Loop has been in business for 30 years. It sells piñatas and other party supplies, both wholesale and retail. In fact, larger party-supply stores in the Houston-area buy from them, says Alex Rabiela, whose parents own the business.
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On Sunday, a fire destroyed the building and everything inside.
"Heartbreaking. This is everything to us. We had all our livelihood here. This is where we make our money, what we eat off and it's hard," Rabiela told ABC13." We had close to 8,000 piñatas in this location."
Investigators believe the fire was intentionally set. They plan to rebuild "bigger and better." Meantime, they are grateful for something they were frustrated about last week: the backup at the U.S./Mexico border.
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"We would have had that inventory come in last Thursday. So all that new inventory with Easter piñatas, that would have been gone. So, thank God," Rabiela said.
They expect the truck on Friday and plan to be back in business either on property or in a tent across the street.
"All we need is for people to keep buying from us. Keep on keeping us going."
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