Colin Soares, the former owner of M. Soares and Sons and a fixture of the Spanish Point community, has died at the age of 77.

Mr Soares worked at the grocery store for 40 years and owned it for 25 years before he retired in 1998, selling the business to his sons Dean and Craig.

Dean Soares said Mr Soares was a firm father and a talented businessman who was well loved by customers.

“He was always very personable,” Dean Soares said. “He liked to chat and skylark with the customers. He had a rapport with everyone that came in the store.

“He would always say that he went to work and a hundred of his best friends would come in.”

Craig Soares echoed the sentiments, saying: “He would always have a back and forth with the customers, especially the regulars.”

M. Soares and Sons was opened in 1911 by Mr Soares’s grandfather, Manuel Soares, a Portuguese immigrant from California who came to Bermuda. Ever since then, the shop has been owned and operated by the Soares family.

Mr Soares first started working at the family store in 1958 and purchased it from his uncle, John Soares, in 1973.

Dean Soares said that the bond between his father and the store’s customers extended beyond the store to the wider community.

“Any time an ambulance would go up the hill, our phone would ring with people asking what happened,” he said. “We have had a lot of phone calls from the community and people coming in and expressing their condolences. He hadn’t been present in the store for a while but people still remember him.”

On one occasion, Dean Soares recalled his father taking charge after a customer went into labour in the store.

“He was so excited,” he said. “The first customer that walked in, he told her that she was taking the woman to the hospital. No ands, buts or ors.”

Outside of the shop, Mr Soares enjoyed golfing and sailing, and once held aspirations of becoming a football player.

In addition to watching football, Mr Soares was an avid baseball fan, cheering on the New York Yankees — something which was not appreciated by everyone in the household.

“My mother was a Red Sox fan,” Dean Soares added. “Things got pretty intense there sometimes.”