To Spice Up a Party (or Roast the Packers) Consider these Texas-made Hats

A mother-and-son duo’s party hat company blew up after a Shark Tank appearance, and then went viral after their “cheese grater” hat featured heavily in a NFL post-game celebration.

Arguably the most popular of NFL team paraphernalia is the cheese head hat worn by backers of the Green Bay Packers. The favored triangular foam bonnets have become a slice of Packers fandom and have generated high volume sales.

But fans of Green Bay’s opponents have latched on to another hat that trumps the popular cheese head hat. It’s the cheese grater hat, which projects an image of shredding the Wisconsin cheese.

Manuel Rojas is the co-founder and co-owner of Foam Party Hats, a Houston, Texas company that a few years ago made cheese head hats. But Rojas received a cease-and-desist letter from the Packers on behalf of the team’s own supplier.

So, in 2025, his 73-year-old mother and business partner Grace, who designs all the hats at Foam Party Hats, came up with idea of a cheese grater for opponents of the Packers.

Yes, revenge can be sweet.

“The cheese grater hat that we have is the most viral thing we have done,” said Rojas. “The reason is when the Green Bay Packers played the Bears at the end of the regular season, the player who received a game ball from the coach wore a cheese grater hat that we made on national TV, and it went super viral.

“We were spending a lot of money on those cheese head hats and when we got the cease-and-desist letter and we couldn’t make them anymore, I was kind of pissed and I needed to find a new source of revenue. We decided to make something to go against the Packers, and that’s how we designed the cheese grater hat. It’s been a blessing.”

Foam Party Hats has received more than 10,000 orders for the cheese grater box hats with the Bears most recent playoff win over the Packers fueling additional sales. The cheese grater hats retail for $39.99 and are currently on back order with the next batch expected to be shipped to retailers in late February.

The manufacturing of the foam chapeaus started in 2002 with Grace Rojas in Venezuela. Manuel’s sister was getting married and a Venezuelan tradition was to create fun objects for the Hora Loca part of the nuptials. Hora Loca translates to “crazy hour” in English, and Grace Rojas created hats, masks and costumes for the celebration.

“She created Top Hats, Jesters, flowers and more and people at the wedding loved them,” said 34-year-old Manuel Rojas. “She kept making them, got some clients and started a small, one-person business. We moved to the U.S. in 2010, and she found some foam providers here in the U.S. and she started making hats by herself until 2017, which is when I graduated from college. Then we started a national business.”

Foam Party Hats today has 24 employees working out of an 8,500 square foot facility in Houston. All materials, including the massive amount of foam, are sourced in America. Foam Party Hats purchases most of its foam from William T. Burnett & Co. in Maryland and Premier Foam in Georgia.

Foam Party Hats buys the foam pre-cut into sheets that are ½ inch thick and come in packets of 40. The foam manufacturers provide foam in many assorted colors.

“We use a press machine to cut the pieces,” said Rojas. “It’ a classic press machine where we put five sheets of foam stacked together and then we put the dies on top of it and the press machine will cut them into the shapes we want.

“For example, the cheese grater has five different dies cutting into eight different pieces and those are the eight different pieces we use to assemble the hat. Assembly is all manual with the pieces being glued together on a large table at the gluing station. Then they are put on racks to dry and then they are vacuum packed and shipped.”

What put Foam Party Hats on the national map was a 2020 appearance on Shark Tank. Manuel and his mother wore Covid-19 hats that replicated a laboratory microscopic slide of the virus with the words “Keep Your Distance” on the front.

They struck a deal with Sharks Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner. After the show aired Greiner bowed out but Cuban stayed with a deal of 12.5% for $50,000.

“After the show the sharks do their due diligence and whatnot, and Lori’s team decided not to make an investment in the company because she didn’t see how her money would be put to good use because at that time our business was three people and it was really hard to scale up.

“But Mark decided to invest and his money has helped us tremendously, to say the least. He got 12.5% and my mother and I each have 43.75%.

“For us, right now, we are doing very large volumes compared to the time before Shark Tank. We were making about $100,000 a year and just the night of the airing on Shark Tank we did $65,000. That night we did more than half of what we had done in a year, so it was really a big break for us, especially because they put us on the map.

“Our appearance on Shark Tank is something that certifies the company and whenever you are talking with business partners, with retailers and other people, it makes the conversation easy because they like the brand. It opened a lot of doors for us.”

Today, Foam Party Hats has become a major player making deals with Walmart, CVS, Albertson’s and other large retailers. Originally a direct-to-consumer online business, Foam Party Hats has increased its presence in the wholesale market. The company has had year-over-year growth up until 2025 when it began concentrating on flooding the retail stores market.

“I think we are going to do from 200 to 300% growth and that is not counting the cheese grater hat,” added Rojas. “Last year we reached $1.6 million in revenue and this year we are foreseeing around $5 million to $6 million. We already have about $3 million in pre orders between now and June.”

With his recent success Rojas has planned big things for the immediate future, which will require him to hire more manufacturing employees and move into a larger factory. He has already secured licensing for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which begins in June. He is also looking ahead to next season’s NFL games because he hopes to have full NFL licensing by then.

Rojas is also targeting the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as he continues to make hats for many of the holidays, including Valentine’s Day, Ground Hog Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Fourth of July (Uncle Sam top hats), Halloween, Christmas and New Year’s revelry.

Rojas has more than 800 hats listed on the Foam Party Hat website retailing anywhere from $9 to $100. The typical sweet spot price is in the $30 to $40 range.

“Coming to this country and having this growing business is like the American dream,” said Rojas. “It’s not easy but here in the U.S. you can succeed if you work hard.”

Visit www.foampartyhats.com to see the American-made collection.