After nearly three years of delays, Pete’s Fresh Market opened last week in Tinley Park, at 163rd Street and Harlem Avenue, as a part of the company’s expansion in the south and southwest suburbs.
Omar Guerrero, the store’s general manager, said customers were so excited opening day that they ran through the aisles, racing to get to the discounts and explore the store.
Guerrero, who’s worked at Pete’s for more than 20 years and started as a checkout-line bagger, said he’s received a lot of thankful comments from customers, with just a few negative comments about parking lot speed bumps the store removed shortly after opening.
Guerrero said he was proud for his staff and the community when the doors opened, as he said people have anticipated the store’s debut for a long time.
Initial plans called for the store to open by Sept. 1, 2022, but it was delayed multiple times due to material shortages and prices along with delays in getting required electrical equipment due to persistent shortages, according to the chain’s 2024 petition to the village.
Pete’s customer Madleen Rafati, a Tinley Park resident with two young children, said Friday the opening will save her 25 minutes of commute to other Pete’s stores. She said she shops at the chain because it offers a wide variety of international products that include her Arabic culture’s foods.
Rafati also said shopping there was like a return to pre-COVID-19, when she would see more community members at grocery stores.
“It’s nice having beautiful stores like these that are closer to home that we can come out and shop together,” Rafati said. “I’m really happy with it.”
Alita Bezanis, chief people officer at Pete’s Market, said it offers more than 100,000 different items, compared to the usual 15,000 to 50,000 offered in other stores. These items are usually tailored to the community, and she said there’s a wide variety of cultures near the Tinley Park store.
“We do our homework to see who’s in the area, and make sure that we cover it,” Bezanis said. “It’s many different roots in one market.”
Store manager Melissa Ordonia, left, and general manager Omar Guerrero stand in the juice section of Pete’s Fresh Market in Tinley Park, days after its opening. (Addison Wright/Daily Southtown)
Kimberly Hall, a Tinley Park resident, and Mona Gottwald, from Midlothian, both said Friday while shopping they like the store for its variety and cleanliness.
Hall said she watched construction unfold during her weekly trips to Sam’s Club, next door. Now, Pete’s Market is a part of that Sam’s trip, and she said she especially likes the hot and cold bars in Pete’s.
Gottwald said Friday she wanted to visit the store because she heard so much excitement from the community on Facebook.
Pete’s Fresh Market employee Kometra Carrol helps customers check out groceries in her first week at Pete’s Market in Tinley Park. (Addison Wright/Daily Southtown)
Guerrero, the general manager, also said staff was excited about the store, which employs about 190 people mostly from the area.
He said he has worked to bridge the gap between new employees, about 80% of the staff, and the tenured employees, who were pulled to work from other Pete’s stores.
“We’re trying to mix them together and try to integrate our culture to the new employees,” Guerrero said.
He said the store posts the company’s three pillar values — service, quality and value — in the staff locker rooms, cafe area and “all over the store.” At the core of these values, he said, is service.
Pete’s Fresh Market employee Makayla Scarlett receives a grocery bag from employee Kometra Carrol in the first week of work. (Addison Wright/Daily Southtown)
Makayla Scarlett, a bagger and Tinley Park resident, said her first day was overwhelming, but she’s enjoyed the job so far.
Scarlett heard about the position at a Tinley job fair and met her now friend and co-worker, Kometra Carrol, last month in training.
Carrol said she likes to see the wide variety of items customers buy and asks them about how they cook the ingredients.
The store was originally a 38,000-square-foot Kmart. Tinley Park approved the company’s plan to use the building, vacant since 2017, in September 2020.
After years of delays, Eugene Grzynkowicz told the village’s Plan Commission in 2024 that rising costs of construction materials also meant a complete redesign of the grocery store to better suit the budget.
Another Pete’s Market opened in Orland Park in February, and Bezanis said the company plans to open markets in New Lenox, Oak Park and Palos Heights.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/07/petes-fresh-market-tinley-park/
