For generations of Jamaicans and visitors, The Pelican Grill in Montego Bay is where breakfast starts early, lunch stretches into long conversation, and the staff already knows your order before you have settled into your seat.

Just steps from the Hip Strip, The Pelican Grill has quietly woven itself into the fabric of the city. Its story begins in 1964, as a modest coffee shop attached to a guest house belonging to Peter Scudamore’s parents. Three years in, the menu grew beyond coffee, and the restaurant found a new name, inspired by the pelicans that once gathered along the bay.

Mango Scotchie Chicken: Tender fried chicken tossed in a sweet, fiery mango Scotch bonnet sauce that balances tropical sweetness with real Jamaican heat. 

“The pelican has a pretty healthy appetite,” Scudamore says, laughing. “So the portions at The Pelican Grill are never small.” Sixty-two years on, the portions are still generous. What keeps people coming back is the consistency. Breakfast leans into Jamaican classics like ackee and salt fish, served alongside pancakes, French toast and omelettes. By lunchtime, the menu shifts into comfort food: Oxtail, curry goat and Scudamore’s own favourite, the restaurant’s famous breaded pork chops. “It’s real comfort food,” he says, adding that the curried shrimp is another dish he never tires of.

Ayesha Barker (left) and Shantell McIntyre of The Pelican Grill team present a spread of the restaurant’s signature dishes. 

No visit ends without a stop at the soda fountain. The legendary Jumbo Malt, thick with ice cream and nostalgia, has become a destination of its own, drawing loyal patrons all the way from Kingston. The recipe has not changed, even as the faces behind the counter have. Veteran soda fountain staff pass the method down to newer employees, so every jumbo malt still tastes exactly as customers remember.

That dedication runs deeper than the menu. Many members of The Pelican Grill’s team have spent decades with the restaurant, greeting returning customers by name and building relationships that cannot be faked.

From left: Elizabeth Bennett-Dalley, sister of Peter Scudamore, owner of The Pelican Grill; Laura Scudamore-Clarke, his daughter; Peter Scudamore; and his wife Elaine.

For Scudamore, those relationships hold some of his most treasured memories. What means even more to him today is watching long-standing customers return after years away. “I appreciate when I see customers who have been away for a while come back,” he reflects. “To greet them and see they’re still enjoying the restaurant and the food, that means a lot.”

While Scudamore no longer spends as many hours at the restaurant as he once did, the business continues to thrive under the leadership of his sister, Elizabeth Bennett-Dalley, whose hands-on management has made her the driving force behind its day-to-day operations. Together with Scudamore’s wife, Elaine, and daughter, Laura Scudamore-Clarke, they help ensure the restaurant continues to uphold the values that have always defined The Pelican Grill.

Peter and Elaine (left) Scudamore welcome The Best Dressed Chicken Sales Representative Kadeen Howden, seen here enjoying The Pelican Grill’s signature Mango Scotchie Chicken.

That commitment has weathered its share of storms, literally. Power outages, water shortages and, more recently, Hurricane Melissa have all tested the restaurant’s resolve. While some suppliers struggled to recover, The Pelican Grill found what it needed to keep serving its customers. “When you have quality to uphold,” Scudamore says, “you do what’s necessary.” That resolve earned The Pelican Grill the 2026 Jamaica Observer Table Talk Community Resilience Award, recognising the restaurant for staying open in the aftermath of the hurricane and offering the community comfort and a sense of normalcy when it was needed most.

Mike Jones, sales and marketing director, The Best Dressed Chicken, presents the Jamaica Observer Table Talk Community Resilience Award to Laura Scudamore-Clarke (centre) and Rachel Wilmot, who accepted on their father Peter Scudamore’s behalf.

The same sense of loyalty extends beyond the family behind the counter. The Best Dressed Chicken has supplied The Pelican Grill for decades, a relationship built on the kind of trust that outlasts contracts and, for at least one member of the Best Dressed team, runs back to childhood. “I grew up with The Pelican Grill. It was where my family went for every celebration, every treat, every reason to smile. Working with them now, I still feel that same warmth. Some things don’t change, and that’s exactly why people trust this restaurant,” says Kadeen Howden, The Best Dressed Chicken sales representative.

Looking ahead, Scudamore expects the restaurant to evolve rather than reinvent itself. “We make adjustments,” he says. “But the standard of what we have will remain. No radical changes.” Peter Scudamore remains committed to preserving the standards that have defined The Pelican Grill for more than six decades. His daughter Laura is focused on what comes next. “Right here,” she says. “The Pelican is a landmark and a place where families have grown up. Imagine bringing your children, even your grandchildren, to the place where you had your first milkshake. The Pelican is a family tradition for generations to come. It’s a memory you can always come home to.” After more than 60 years, The Pelican Grill proves that its greatest ingredient was never on the menu. It is the family that built it, the people who have sustained it, and the generations of customers who keep returning, making memories of their own in a place that has always felt like home.