![]() A private company, Pete’s does not disclose sales information.Īnd the suburban focus is a hard pivot for a company that started as a South Side produce stand in the 1970s and became known for operating high-quality stores in mostly black and Latino Chicago neighborhoods where other grocery stores are scarce. That pace is aggressive for an independent grocer competing with deep-pocketed chains like Albertsons-owned Jewel-Osco, Kroger-owned Mariano's, Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market and fast-growing discounter Aldi. Four additional stores - in Matteson, New Lenox, Oak Park and Oak Lawn - are slated to open over the next two to three years. It recently opened its 14th store, in a former Whole Foods Market in Wheaton, and has new stores coming to Glen Ellyn and Lemont this fall. The Dremonas sisters are at the controls of Pete’s Fresh Market as it pursues an ambitious expansion that is taking it well beyond its urban roots. “I think seeing that this could be something a lot bigger, and we can double or triple this in size with the right team and foundation … I really thought that this is like Apple stock at $15, this is something that will take off,” Stephanie Dremonas, now 29, said. This, she told her, was something special. She called her eldest sister, Vanessa Dremonas, who at the time worked in health care consulting after getting her master’s in education from Harvard University. So she was struck when her dad gave her a peek behind the scenes of the Chicago chain, which had just opened its ninth store. Stephanie Dremonas, the third of five siblings, hadn’t paid much attention to her family’s grocery business growing up. “He said, ‘I have real estate, come run my real estate.’” “He said, ‘Are you done pushing paper?’” said Dremonas, who at the time was working at Mid-America Real Estate Group after graduating from Marquette University with a degree in real estate and finance. ![]() Stephanie Dremonas was about a year out of college when her dad, Pete’s Fresh Market founder James “Jimmy” Dremonas, called with a proposition. ![]()
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