Businesses reopen after 3-alarm grocery store fire

Fire investigators are still investigating the cause of the 3-alarm fire at an abandoned grocery store in Indio back in May.

The fire happened at the old Lucky’s store on Rubidoux Street near Monroe and Highway 111.

The black column of smoke could be seen all over the valley as crews tried to keep the flames from spreading to neighboring shops.

In the end, six businesses were forced to close because of that fire. Now some of those shops are back in business in new locations.

“It was terrible because we thought we lost everything, it was just terrible for us,” said Jocelyne Mora.

Jocelyne grew up helping run her family’s business Vende Agua. Now it’s boarded up, waiting to be demolished.

“It’s been tough, really hard on all of us, especially the other owners as well because we put in so much money in that area just to see it burn up in flames. It hurt us. It was our first business and now we are starting over,” said Mora.

Raspados Kio’s is starting over after 15 years.

“It’s been so many years, we have a life in there,” said owner Sharo Maca.

“It was a nightmare, we couldn’t believe it. We’d wake up someday and we have everything, like go to work like a normal day, then a couple of hours you wake up and you find out you don’t have your business anymore,” said Maca.

With no insurance, the family-run business had to use their savings to rebuild.

“It was hard for us as a family to make decisions to start all over,” said Maca.

It took nearly two months, but they found a new location across the street from the Indio fairgrounds.

“We have to rebuild it and make everything new, and finally this Tuesday we opened the place again,” said Maca. “Now it’s a relief since we re-opened.”

Next door, Vende Agua also found a space.

“The community has been very helpful. We are widely known in the community, a lot of people have come and helped, and put us up on Facebook,” said Mora.

With help from insurance the business is now up and running. Customers are starting to come back, but it’s a long road to get back to where they were before the fire.

“It’s kind of hard as well because it demands a lot of money, but we will pull through,” said Mora.

The next step is to let their customers know they are back in business.

Four businesses in all have re-opened in Indio.

Raspados Kio’s82-590 Hwy 111 Suite 202 Vende Agua 82590 Hwy 111 Desert Choice Realty81730 Hwy 111 Suite 5 Berta AlterationsOasis and Hwy 111