Our Story
It started with strawberries
Rob Gregory's life in produce started early. From about age five, he spent mornings on his great-grandmother's farm on Cleveland Avenue in Stevensville, Michigan, up at six to pick and load the family's roadside stand. It ran on the honor system: people driving by stopped for fruit picked that morning and left their money in a jar.
His job was the strawberries — two pints for a dollar — and he had to make sure every stem was tucked down and the best red berry faced up.
"I think that's really where I got my passion for produce."
— Rob Gregory
Dominick's
On September 17, 1980, at sixteen, Rob started at Dominick's Finer Foods in Wheeling as a bagger, at $3.10 an hour. About a year later he was offered a job in the produce department — and, as Rob puts it, "the rest is history."
His first produce manager, Tom Zogas, taught him the lesson that still runs Northstar: freshness. Rob went on to become an assistant manager and then a manager, and he trained his own crews the same way — quality, freshness and taking care of the customer.
"They can buy a bunch of bananas or a bag of carrots down the street — but if the quality and freshness is there, that's what separates us."
— Rob Gregory
At the Northbrook Dominick's, Rob found what he loved most: building big, colorful displays — Texas pink grapefruit, Cara Caras and navels piled high — then stepping back to watch customers light up. Later he worked at Heinen's in Barrington. That eye for color and abundance is the same one that arranges a Northstar basket today.
"Nobody gets excited over a can of corn or a box of pasta."
— Rob Gregory, on why produce
1999: Northstar begins
Rob started Northstar in 1999, while he was still at Dominick's. "There weren't a lot of people doing it in the area," he says. "I had a vision of what people wanted, put my best foot forward, and ran with it."
A neighbor told him he should get on the internet — early advice in 1999 — and helped him build Northstar's first website. Orders started coming in from all over. Rob paired that with a delivery partner he trusted, UPS, and buyers at Chicago's South Water Market who shop to his exact specifications.
The name? No grand story. "It was a name that just came alive," Rob says. "The North Star name just clicked."
Northstar has run continuously since 1999. The new online store is simply a fresh look.
What hasn't changed
Rob still judges fruit the way he was trained at Dominick's. He holds a piece of fruit to feel its weight, checks the color, looks for the grower's name on the box, and sorts out anything bruised. A heavy orange is a juicy orange. A pear is judged by its color, never squeezed.
"Our motto is always buy the best of the best. We may charge a little bit more, but our customers always know they're getting the best of the best at a fair price."
— Rob Gregory
Every basket is looked over by a person before it's sealed. Rob calls it "live eyes." And everyone who builds baskets here learns the family rule on day one: if you wouldn't want your own family to receive it, it doesn't leave the warehouse.
For every kind of occasion
Over the years Northstar has sent baskets for birthdays, new babies, get-wells, retirements, anniversaries, thank-yous and holidays — and for the hardest days, too, including the bereavement basket in the Jewish tradition. Rob says they've built thousands.
Many customers come back year after year.
"Over the years they basically become like family."
— Rob Gregory, on his longtime customers
Northstar today
Northstar is still a family business in Palatine, Illinois. Every basket is assembled by hand here and ships from here, by UPS, to anywhere in the continental United States. You can order online any time, or call or text Rob at (224) 836-7444.
What Rob wants hasn't changed: that moment when someone opens the box and says "wow."
"It's a simple concept: you want that basket to ship out the way you'd want to receive it."
— Rob Gregory