From Manchester Parish to East Waco

Every plate at Tru Jamaica starts in the same place: a kitchen in Manchester Parish, Jamaica, where our head chef Vivia Charles learned to cook from her own family. When people in Waco taste our oxtails or curry goat and say it reminds them of somewhere, that’s the somewhere. It’s not a recipe from a book — it’s the way her mother made it, and her mother before that.

Manchester is a parish in the cool central highlands of Jamaica, known for its farms, its spices, and food cooked slow and seasoned deep. That’s the tradition Vivia carried across the water when the family settled in Texas.

Why we call ourselves the Family

Tru Jamaica isn’t a chain and it isn’t a concept dreamed up in an office. It’s run by the Family. Vivia (Mom) is the head chef and the keeper of the recipes. Aniceto (her son) handles the business and the community. Mercedes (her daughter) is part of it too. When you order from us, you’re eating a family’s food, cooked the way they eat it at home.

“Wi likkle, but wi tallawah.” — We may be small, but we are strong. It’s a Jamaican proverb, and it’s how we’ve done business in East Waco from day one.

Rebuilt by fire

In December 2022, a fire closed our dining room. We could have stopped. Instead, we took the food to the streets in our food truck, and Waco showed up for us — every single day. That’s not a marketing line; that’s the honest truth of how we survived. We reopened our doors in October 2025, rebuilt and grateful.

What “authentic” actually means to us

A lot of places use that word. For us it means specific things: coconut rice and peas cooked from scratch, real scotch bonnet heat when a dish calls for it, oxtails stewed until they fall off the bone, and jerk that’s marinated and cooked with real fire — not a sauce shaken on at the end. If Vivia wouldn’t serve it to her own family, it doesn’t leave our kitchen.

If you’re new to Jamaican food, come hungry and ask questions — we love introducing people to it. If you grew up on it, we think you’ll taste home. Either way: come mek wi nyam — come, let’s eat.