It's a winding path through a vegetable garden to reach the East End Market. Inside, there is a cornucopia of eateries, from breads and beer to sushi and sandwiches.
It can be difficult to find ways to help those less fortunate when growing a business. But for John Rife, growing can feed profit — and people.
"Small businesses — those type of dollars stay locally, so we're trying to support the local economy," Rife said.
Rife calls it his social entrepreneurship. It's a unique mixture of food and small shops together under one roof.
"So, no longer does a corporation just have to be solely focused on net profit, we can also be going, 'If everyone's getting paid and we're making a living and doing good, that doing good has a value,'" Rife said.
Rife's garden is currently the approved urban farm in Orlando. In addition to growing unique seasonal vegetables and herbs, the gardens of the East End Market are also a place of sharing. If you're one of the volunteers who work there, you get a share of the harvest.
East End Market is working with groups like Good Food Central Florida to find ways to grow seasonal crops in underserved communities.
"We're looking at how do we get fresh produce into food deserts, so into areas like Parramore and Eatonville that you've got to drive several miles to get fresh food," Rife said. "How can we get into those communities? How can we teach them to have community gardens?"
Investing in community gardens can sprout new business, too.
"We're trying to both give them the venue and then we have classes on food entrepreneurship, what licenses (you need), how (to) get started," Rife said. "And we bring in people in the community that their mission is to help those kinds of people. We use our event space to help give those guys a head start."
That head start includes a community kitchen to rent instead of buying costly equipment, as well as fertile ground for a new, pop-up restaurant.
One program under development, Rife said, is to work with local communities to turn unused pieces of property into working market gardens that would pay people to produce health, local food.
"This is what we created this for," Rife said. "(It) was to give small entrepreneurs the opportunity to try new stuff. And while I hope they will be here forever because their food is really good — if they graduate, that’s the point."