If you grew up around food the way we did, you’d know it’s not just nutrition or sustenance.
It’s the sound of a shop door opening early in the morning.
It’s trays of pickles stacked high in the back room.
It’s the smell of olives, coffee, and spices all mixing together to create a scent that somehow stays with you, even 20+ years later.
It’s conversations that start with “You have to try this” and end with a recipe, a memory, or a story.
OurBasket was born from that world.
Simon and I are cousins. We’re also second-generation grocers, importers, and self-professed foodies, whether we wanted to be or not. Our dads (brothers) came to the U.S. to start a new life and chase the American dream. They found that dream in a small specialty food store they opened in Queens, NY, back in 1980, called Sunflower.
Some of our earliest memories aren’t vacations or toys, but grocery stores, farms, warehouses, and production lines. Places where the owner knew your name and quietly slipped you something new to try.
We were also those kids - the ones with the weird lunches. While everyone else had peanut butter and jelly, we showed up with olives, dried fruit, and foods our classmates couldn’t pronounce. Humble brag: I was eating Nutella sandwiches way before it was cool in the States. At the time it felt normal. Looking back, it was a preview of everything that came next.
Our family built their livelihood around food long before e-commerce, when “add to cart” meant dropping your items at the front counter so our grandma could total it up. We grew up watching our parents travel the world sourcing products, meeting suppliers, obsessing over quality, and, most importantly, building relationships one customer at a time.
We learned at a young age that food brings people together. And that's why we do what we do.
Friday night family dinners weren’t just dinners. They were a testing ground. A home-grown R&D lab. New samples came out on the table, opinions flew, debates broke out over whether something was really good enough. We even had a built-in focus group spanning three generations, plus a marketing team where product names were brainstormed, tested, rejected, and sometimes revived weeks later.
Outside the house, we spent time in warehouses and on supplier visits, traveling the world, exposed to new cultures, traditions, and tastes. We learned how good food is sourced, how it’s made, how it’s packaged, and how it gets delivered. We also got some early crash courses in driving forklifts as kids, emphasis on the crash.
We were thrown into dealing with customers and suppliers from a young age. We learned quickly how important relationships are, not just in business but in life. Making people feel seen, heard, and respected. Understanding that great products matter, but exceptional customer service is what people remember.
We lived this. It’s in our DNA. We absorbed the work ethic, ambition, and most importantly, the desire to serve our customers and our community.
Over time, the world changed. Shopping changed. The neighborhood specialty store, the kind that curated, educated, and genuinely delighted, started to disappear. It was replaced by endless aisles, faceless marketplaces, “.coms”
And something important was lost.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed shopping online - scrolling endless pages, unsure who chose the products or whether they’re actually any good - you’re not alone. And if you’ve ever missed the feeling of a shopkeeper who knew their shelves, offered ideas, shared stories, and helped you discover something new, this store was built for you. Whether you shop kosher, eat intentionally, or just want better food without the guesswork, OurBasket is our way of bringing that experience back.
Why We Built OurBasket
Not to recreate the past exactly, but to carry its spirit forward.
Starting this together felt natural. We talked about bringing the store back for years, constantly saying, “We should really bring the store back.” Eventually, we realized we should.
We believe people still want connection. Discovery without overwhelm. Quality without having to decode labels. Confidence that someone knowledgeable, and honest, has already done the work for them.
We’ve spent our entire lives around food: importing it, branding it, selling it, tasting it, arguing about it, and sometimes getting it wrong and learning the hard way. Between us, we bring decades of experience in sourcing, manufacturing, compliance, branding, and retail. More than that, we bring instincts shaped by growing up in a family business where reputation mattered more than margins, and where products carried our name, whether printed on the package or not.
That upbringing is the compass behind every decision we make.
What You’ll Find Here (and What You Won’t)
OurBasket isn’t just another place to buy groceries online. It’s our attempt to recreate the neighborhood specialty store we grew up in - reimagined for today.
Think of it as a digital corner market built on trust, taste, and family values.
We curate intentionally. We don’t carry everything, and that’s by design: so you spend less time searching and more time discovering things you’ll actually love.
Every product earns its place the same way it would have in our family’s store, through tasting, debating, questioning, and asking one simple question: would we give this to our own family at home? If the answer isn’t yes, it doesn’t make it onto the shelf.
You’ll find a carefully chosen mix of kosher and dietary-conscious specialty and global foods, including staples and discoveries, all vetted with the same standards we grew up with.
We’ve designed the experience to feel familiar. The site is organized like a real store, with aisles that make sense, clear information, and filters that help instead of confuse. Product pages don’t just tell you what something is, they answer why it matters, where it comes from, how it’s used, and how it fits into your kitchen and your life.
And because a good store is more than just product and shelves, you’ll also find recipes, stories, and education, the digital version of a shopkeeper leaning over the counter to say, “Here’s how I like to use this,” or “This one reminds me of home.”
What you won’t find is noise for the sake of noise. Endless listings with no context. Products we wouldn’t serve our own families. This isn’t about convenience at all costs or chasing trends. It’s about thoughtful curation, honest service, and creating a place that feels like your store.
This is Our Basket. And we’re sharing it with you.
Join Our Family
When you share a meal, you’re breaking bread. You’re slowing down. You’re connecting. And whether you realize it or not, you’re becoming part of something bigger.
Our fathers taught us early that customers aren’t transactions, they’re people. You treat them with care. You listen. You remember them. You welcome them back. You treat them like family, because over time, that’s exactly what they become.
Those lessons shaped the store we grew up in, the business our family built, and the way we approach everything we do today. It’s the heart of OurBasket.
OurBasket is personal. It reflects our family’s history, our values, and our belief that good food has the power to connect people, even in a digital world.
So when you shop here, cook with us, discover something new, or bring one of these products to your table, you’re not just a customer.
You’re breaking bread with us.
You’re part of our family.
You’re part of OurBasket.
We’re genuinely grateful you’re here, and we look forward to sharing that forgotten experience with you.
We invite you to take a stroll through our aisles, explore at your own pace and see what’s been making its way into Our Basket lately.
