Orlando Family Produce has served the St. Louis area and beyond for decades. Now, it’s bringing a produce stand to Glendale.
Over the course of four generations, Kody Rapp said his family has operated fruit stands locally from St. Peters to St. Ann, and farther out from Farmington to Perryville. Working with independently-owned farms, the family has brought communities fresh vegetables and fruit such as oranges, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes and sweet potatoes.
“My great, great grandpa started it: going from house to house with horse and buggy, knocking on people’s doors and selling stuff like that,” Rapp said. “Pretty crazy how far we’ve came since then.”
Orlando Family Produce’s new location is 421 N. Sappington Road in Glendale at the back of Vitale’s Deli’s parking lot. The lot, owned by Mike Vitale, will also host a pop-up shop from May to October, with coffee in the mornings and snow cones in the afternoon.
Vitale, who also owns the Deli next door, said part of the inspiration to coordinate these three activities comes from the amount of foot traffic on N. Sappington.
“We want to make it a family. This neighborhood, they walk [and] run. There’s a lot of people that exercise every morning. They walk their children to school,” Vitale said. “And then this way, when they go out for a run or their walk or walk with their kids to school, on the way back they can walk in and get a cup of coffee and sit down for 10 minutes.”
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Kate McCracken (she/her) is currently a staff writer for The Journal. She has previously worked as the lifestyle editor. She is a double major in Philosophy and History, minoring in Professional Writing. She has always loved to write and create stories, and she wrote her first book at age 10. Aside from writing, Kate also enjoys photography, environmental/animal activism, paranormal investigation and oneirology, the study of dreams.
