A family’s restaurant dream, which began 40 years ago on a shoestring budget and flowered into a chain of popular outlets serving Jamaican cuisine, began with Agatha Thomas’s lifelong ambition to serve Caribbean cooking.

She and her husband, Ranville, opened the first Jamaican Grill on Parsons Road, Pembroke, in 1986. An Ord Road version followed in 1994, then a third outlet in Somerset, culminating in the two-storey restaurant on Court Street in Hamilton.

Although they were famed for their cuisine, the couple were prominent figures at Revival Assembly Church, where Mr Thomas, who died in 2022, was pastor.

Mrs Thomas was also something of a matriarch in her North Hamilton neighbourhood and an unofficial consul for the island’s Jamaican community.

She hailed from the mountains of Jamaica’s St Andrew Parish, where her father, Gerald, ran a dry goods business. Her character was shaped by growing up as the only girl in the midst of seven brothers.

Also highly influential was her mother, Viola Tyrell, who passed on her cooking skills as well as a love of sharing her cuisine with the community.

That community included her future husband. The two would get reacquainted and then marry after they moved to Bermuda — at age 21 for Mrs Thomas, and 19 for her husband-to-be, who came here as a mason.

Mrs Thomas heard about Bermuda from her brothers, who travelled abroad in a band and found Bermuda to their liking. She initially worked as a caretaker for children.

Her daughter, Florence Darrell, said: “Her brothers brought her over. Then a lot of people from the district started coming as more people brought each other. I think she and my father met through the church. She knew his family, he knew ours, and they just reconnected and got married in 1968.”

The couple’s home at Tills Hill received a constant stream of guests where Mrs Thomas served food based on her mother’s recipes.

Ms Darrell said: “She wanted to open a restaurant and, of course, my father was right there with her.”

The first Jamaican Grill, a takeout, was a hit with the neighbourhood. One of its popular dishes, the Deepdale Special, evolved from a creation popular with children from the adjacent Deepdale community.

The family retain the site for preparing food, although hopes are it will reopen as a restaurant. There is also a Jamaican Grill at Bailey’s Bay Cricket Club.

Ms Darrell described her mother as a mixture of toughness and warmth.

“She was very selfless, always looking out for everybody else,” she said.

“At the same time, she was someone who if she thought of something, she did it. She was a force to reckon with when it came to achieving her ambition.”

Mrs Thomas’s granddaughter, Natiqua Darrell, added: “She was very headstrong — very ambitious and focused. She was the type of woman who never accepted ‘no’.”

Mrs Thomas quickly became someone that new arrivals from Jamaica would seek out. She acquired the nickname Tency from Jamaicans.

Ms Darrell said her mother not only made sure they got a good meal, but helped people to find housing and job opportunities. Sometimes emigrants would stay in the family home, which shifted from Tills Hill to nearby Ewing Street.

She provided references for people to get bank accounts and tracked down lawyers to help people who ended up in trouble. If something happened in the Jamaican community, the Thomases’ phone would inevitably ring.

Mrs Thomas’s love of music can be seen on the walls of the main Court Street restaurant. Jamaican dancehall artists and entertainers who came to Bermuda would end up at the Jamaican Grill and, more often than not, get invited to her church.

As such a recognised figure in her community, Mrs Thomas would be approached and greeted virtually any time she went out in public.

Ms Darrell said: “You’d see her always stopping young people, asking after them, telling them to stay out of trouble — and asking them if they wanted to go to church. That’s just the type of person she was; giving, loving and strong.”

Although Mrs Thomas loved Bermuda as her second home, she often travelled back to Jamaica, where she had a homestead in her home region, and stayed close to family.

Mrs Thomas frequently brought guests with her to stay for free and experience her Caribbean home.

A thrifty shopper, she also liked to ensure that the people with her found good bargains.

Mrs Thomas brought barrels of supplies with her to share with people in Jamaica.

Ms Darrell said: “I never heard her say ‘hello’ to a person. She would always say ‘God bless you’. Even in the hospital, she was always blessing people and thanking them.”

• Agatha May Thomas, a restaurateur and leading figure in Bermuda’s Jamaican community, was born on January 5, 1943. She died on February 9, 2026, aged 83