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Peapod to open pilot store concept in Palatine

Peapod, the Skokie-based online grocery shopping and delivery business, will soon bring its pilot store concept to Palatine.

The company plans to open a food store, likely within the next 30 to 60 days, in the former Boston Market stand-alone building at Quentin Road and Northwest Highway. It will fill one of several long-vacant spaces still available in the struggling Quentin Corners shopping center.

“I think this is the perfect opportunity for that corner, and hopefully will bring some life back (to Quentin Corners),” Palatine Councilman Kollin Kozlowski said.

Peapod representative David Tanner said that under the business model, customers will continue to place advance orders online or by phone, and then schedule a designated pickup time slot. When they arrive at the store, patrons will announce themselves through a call box or window, and an attendant will bring the order out to the car. Customers never enter the store.

Palatine officials had no concerns with parking since Peapod is able to limit the number of pickup orders placed in a given hour, preventing a rush of customers at specific times.

Food will be delivered once or twice daily from the Peapod distribution facility on Ensell Road in Lake Zurich. The food is packaged in presorted, insulated totes.

Tanner said the Palatine store will be Peapod's first in the Chicago area, but that the company envisions opening more in high-density areas and near train stations and other transportation centers. Its parent company, Ahold USA, operates similar pickup food stores on the East Coast through the Stop & Shop supermarket chain.

According to its website, Peapod has 1,800 employees nationwide and has filled 19 million orders since it began in 1989. It carries more than 8,000 products and served more than 350,000 customers in 2010.

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