St. Paul firefighters were called to the same street corner, at Arcade Street and Jenks Avenue East, twice on Wednesday, for two different business fires discovered several hours apart.

Fire damaged the building that houses the Eastside Checkerboard Pizza, at 992 Arcade Street, at around 1:30 p.m.

Earlier, at around 6:15 a.m., a different fire across the street burned at 52 Market & Trading.

“The fire chief called me in the morning and my heart just sank,” said Sean Vang, who runs 52 Market. “I asked if my staff was OK, he told me . . . the building was vacant, and I feel much better.”

Vang and his wife, Salina, took over running the market earlier this year.

The store has been a fixture in the East Side community for nearly two decades.

“Speechless, just so much pain and hurt,” Salina Vang said. “The hardest part is we have so many customers coming here yesterday and today, and they didn’t know it was burnt, we had to tell them, ‘Sorry, it’s closed.’ It’s really, really hard for me.”

The damage inside the family-owned business is extensive.

Hours later, around midday Wednesday, St. Paul firefighters came back to the same corner, but this time it was for the fire that was burning at the Eastside Checkerboard Pizza building.

The building sustained fire and smoke damage on the first and second floors. St. Paul city officials posted a condemned sign in the window.

After the second fire, on the same corner, St. Paul Deputy Fire Chief Roy Mokosso spoke Wednesday to the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew at the scene.

“Proximity does kind of make things suspicious, but we’ll go through the full forensic science process in regards to the investigation of the fire,” Mokosso said.

St. Paul Fire said that part of the investigation will involve checking security cameras in the area, but also looking to see if there were accidental causes that could have possibly started the fires.

“The customer could have shopped anywhere in the Twin Cities, with all the large retail Asian grocery stores, but they chose to come here. That means so much to us,” Sean Vang said.

The couple is making plans to reopen their market, but it could be many, many months of repairs ahead.

The couple’s catering records burned in the fire, which is why they are now trying to find customers who placed orders, asking them to reach out through their Facebook page.