HOUSTON – From a cease-and-desist to business booming, a local mother and son duo have turned controversy into creativity. Their viral foam hats have sparked thousands of orders, and KPRC’s Zorrie Jones caught up with the creators behind the buzz.
Manuel Rojas and his mother, Grace, are the team behind Foam Party Hats, a Houston company that creates oversized, custom foam headwear for celebrations and sporting events.
“It started back in Venezuela in the 2000s. Everything started with my mom. She’s the genius behind all of our products, the genius behind the design of the hats,” Rojas said. “In 2010, we had to escape the country because of the political situation. Then, in 2017, we founded a company in Houston, Foam Party Hats, and it’s been growing year after year.”
The company gained wider attention in 2020 when it pitched its products on Shark Tank. Since then, Foam Party Hats has worked with major retailers and continued to expand its line.
One of the company’s most successful products is the Cheese Grater Hat, which followed the discontinuation of an earlier cheese-shaped foam hat sold to fans of the Green Bay Packers.
“It was more mimicked toward Swiss cheese, with a red band on the bottom,” Rojas said. “At that time, the cheese hats’ manufacturing process was down, so fans were looking for an alternative. We sold it on Amazon and received a lot of orders.”
However, the company eventually received a cease-and-desist letter from the packers related to that product.
“I was shocked because we were a small business getting a legal document from such a big corporation,” Rojas said. “It was really scary. Luckily, we had an investor from Shark Tank, so we ran it by them. They told us the best thing to do was take the product down. You can fight it, but it would cost too much.”
After having to stop selling that product, Rojas said the company responded by creating the Cheese Grater Hat, a playful twist inspired by the situation. The move quickly paid off, as customer support poured in and orders surged. Sales spiked even more after the Bears’ win over the Packers on January 10, with fans rallying behind the new design.
During KPRC’s Zorrie Jones visit to Foam Party Hats, Rojas showed stacks of printed orders of roughly 8,000 in a single day as the company worked to keep up with demand.
“The amount of love has been amazing,” Rojas said. “We get tons of emails from people just saying thank you for making the product. People are buying all the way to March, and they understand we’re backlogged.”
Rojas says the experience has been overwhelming, but incredibly rewarding.
“It’s been nonstop, but we’re grateful,” he said.