Sylvia Woods founded Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem in 1962.
Woods opened the restaurant on Lenox Avenue after buying a small luncheonette called Johnson’s Luncheonette with her husband, Herbert. She expanded its menu and reputation around Southern home cooking, including fried chicken, ribs, collard greens, and cornbread.
Sylvia’s became known as “The Soul Food Queen of Harlem.” Politicians, entertainers, writers, and neighborhood residents all helped make it an internationally recognized restaurant. The business remained family-operated after Woods’s death in 2012.
Sylvia’s Restaurant is sometimes confused with famous New Orleans establishments such as Dooky Chase’s, but the Harlem restaurant is specifically associated with Sylvia Woods and New York’s African American culinary history.