Harlem's Soul-Food 'Queen' Dies at 86 - Wall Street Journal

By STEPHEN MILLER And MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL

The founder of Sylvia's Restaurant, Harlem's landmark soul-food establishment, died Thursday. Sylvia Woods was 86 years old, and in Harlem she was known as "The Queen of Soul Food."

Founded in 1962, Sylvia's attained a national reputation as a place where black society gathered to celebrate. It became a meeting spot for politicians of every stripe.

Associated Press

Sylvia Woods, shown in front of her restaurant for its 40th-anniversary celebration in 2002, died Thursday.

"For more than 50 years, New Yorkers have enjoyed Sylvia's and visitors have flocked to Harlem to get a table," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "We lost a legend today."

Her death coincided with a reception hosted by the mayor to celebrate Harlem Week. At the event, Ms. Woods was scheduled to receive an award commemorating the 50th anniversary of her restaurant, which is still open.

Sylvia's is blocks from Harlem's revived Apollo Theater. Top performers at the theater as well as audience members would stop in for a bite before showtime. "Sylvia was not just a pillar in the community but her brand resonated across the world and her business acumen helped put Harlem on the map," said the Rev. Al Sharpton in a statement.

Ms. Woods came to New York City from her native South Carolina in the mid-1940s, and in 1962 purchased the small lunch counter on Lenox Avenue where she had worked as a waitress. Her mother backed her by mortgaging her farm.

The restaurant grew to 450 seats, and the business grew to include a catering hall and packaged-food operation with national distribution offering Southern favorites including collard greens and hot sauce.

Over the years, the menu continued to offer fried chicken, barbecued ribs and chitterlings, but also introduced lighter, more modern fare such as barbecued salmon and grilled chicken breasts.

New locations opened in Atlanta and at John. F. Kennedy International Airport.

Ms. Woods herself became a kind of national ambassador of soul food and published several cookbooks. Most recently she wrote the forward to a lower-calorie approach to classic soul food by her grandson, Lindsey Williams, "Neo Soul: Taking Soul Food to a Whole 'Nutha Level."

"Dining at the restaurant is like dining in my own kitchen," Ms. Woods told the Boston Herald in 1999. "I have a special table where I can sit and watch everybody when they come in; and when they get their food, I can see the expression on their faces. When they take a spoonful and smile, then I bow my head and think, `Yeah, I got it. I got it."'

Write to Stephen Miller at remembrances@wsj.com and Michael Howard Saul at michael.saul@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared July 20, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Harlem's Soul-Food 'Queen' Dies at 86.