NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — Dozens of mourners braved the snowy weather Saturday to gather outside a Golden Krust restaurant in the Bronx, New York to pay homage to the company’s Jamaican-born founder and chief executive officer who reportedly committed suicide a week ago.

According to police reports, Lowell Hawthorne, 57, shot himself inside the firm’s Claremont factory in the Bronx at about 5:30 pm last week Saturday.

Hawthorne, a married father of three sons and a daughter, was found on the floor of his office with a single bullet wound to his head and a handgun lying nearby.

As DJs played Caribbean music and cooks doled out cups of chicken noodle soup, friends and loved ones on offered glowing tributes to Hawthorne, reported the Daily News.

“There’s a lot that we can all learn from Lowell Hawthorne,” said DJ Chris McDonald.

“He’s kind, he’s successful, but never got so big to not stop for the common man,” said Hawthorne’s sister-in-law, Herma Hawthorne, 61, at the vigil.

“We have lost an icon,” she added. “We have lost a mentor. We have lost a man who makes others look on their lives and say, ‘I can do more, I can succeed, I can do better.’”

Streams of mourners paused in front of a mural dedicated to Hawthorne that was hung outside Golden Krust’s first store on E Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, as it grew dark Saturday.

The Golden Krust company said a candle light vigil was also held simultaneously in Jamaica.

“He provided a blueprint for successful businesses,” said Bronx Councilman Andy King, who also lauded Hawthorne for always donating his tasty creations at community events.

“I’m sure he’s sitting at the pearly gates, and as we say, ‘Jah well done my son,’” he added.

New York City Council Member Dr Mathieu Eugene, the first Haitian to be elected to the City Council, also added his voice to a chorus of shock and sadness across the United States and in the Caribbean over Hawthorne’s death.

“Mr Hawthorne was a valued member of the community who used his entrepreneurial and culinary skills to create a standard of excellence that will never be forgotten,” said Eugene, representative for the predominantly Caribbean 40th Council District in Brooklyn, New York.

“I want to extend my prayers and deepest sympathies to his family and friends,” he added.

Reports in New York claim that Hawthorne killed himself amid fears the United States federal government were investigating him for evading millions of dollars in taxes.

A family member told New York police detectives that Hawthorne admitted the huge tax debt to some of his relatives, and was “acting funny” and “talking to himself” in the hours before his suicide Saturday, according to the New York Post.

The paper said that, in August, “Hawthorne was slapped with a proposed class-action suit alleging he cheated as many as 100-plus workers at the Golden Crust plant out of overtime pay.”

The suit – fairly common in the food service industry – remains pending in Manhattan federal court.

The New York Daily News also reported that the owner of the Golden Krust restaurant chain was deep in tax debt and was being sued by a former staffer for “thousands in lost wages,” according to court records.

Hawthorne was “worried” about the liens, which included more than US$150,000 in city taxes on the company’s buildings, a police source told the Daily News.

He also owed at least US$15,000 in state taxes, records show.

In addition to Hawthorne’s tax issues, a former maintenance staffer was suing him in Manhattan Federal Court. It’s reported that onetime employee Robert Wray said he was never paid for the overtime he worked during his 11-year tenure.

Wray’s May 8 lawsuit contends more than 100 other Golden Krust staffers were “similarly stiffed on OT [overtime],” according to the Daily News, adding that the case — which seeks class-action status – is pending.

But the paper said Hawthorne’s popular restaurant chain did not outwardly appear to be struggling.

In fact, it noted that Hawthorne had boasted about expanding the “McDonald’s of the Caribbean” during an episode of CBS’ “Undercover Boss” in May 2016.

“By 2020, all Americans we expect to be eating Golden Krust patties,” Hawthorne said then.

Staffers said they suspected something was wrong when they saw Hawthorne’s silver Tesla 85D parked oddly outside the factory two Saturdays, straddling two lanes, according to the Daily News.

Surveillance video shows the meat-pie mogul shooting himself in the head at his office inside the Golden Krust bakery and warehouse in the Bronx, the Post reported.

“Before the shooting, the video shows Hawthorne speaking with a pair of workers who left the room, both of whom were crouched down when they later returned to his office,” said the Post, basing its information on police sources.

“It was unclear if they saw Hawthorne kill himself, but one of them could be seen making a cellphone call, which a source said was to 911,” it added. “Hawthorne employed dozens of relatives at the business he started in 1989, and the source said he left a note in which he apologized to his family.”

Hawthorne’s younger brother, Milton Hawthorne, 55, met cops who arrived at the Golden Krust plant at 3958 Park Ave. in the Bronx around 5:15 pm Saturday in response to a 911 call about an “emotionally disturbed person armed with a gun,” the Post said.

Hawthorne started Golden Krust with a single fast-food eatery on East Gun Hill Road in the Bronx and opened 16 more across New York City before launching a franchise operation in 1996, the Post said.

It said the company now has more than 120 outlets in nine states, and sells its beef patties in more than 20,000 supermarkets, as well as to New York City school system, New York State penal system and US military, according to a news release issued last year.

“We are shocked and saddened by the death of Lowell Hawthorne,” tweeted New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. “Our prayers are with his family and his loved ones.”

“Our hearts are broken, and we are struggling to process our grief over this tremendous loss,” said the Golden Krust company said in a statement. “Lowell was a visionary, entrepreneur, community champion, and above all a committed father, family man, friend and man of faith.”

A wake will be held at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, a New York City suburb, on December 18.

The home-going Service for Hawthorne will take place the next day at the Christian Cultural Center in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.

Hawthorne’s body will be interred after the home-going service.