Sylvia Woods, Soul-Food
Restaurateur, Is Dead at 86
Sylvia Woods, whose namesake Harlem
soul-food restaurant was frequented by local and national politicians,
international celebrities, tourists, epicures and ordinary neighborhood
residents, died on Thursday at her home in Westchester County, N.Y. She was
86.
Her family announced the death, citing no cause. Its statement said Ms. Woods had been ill with Alzheimer’s disease for the last few years.
Her family announced the death, citing no cause. Its statement said Ms. Woods had been ill with Alzheimer’s disease for the last few years.
Her death came a few hours before she was to
receive an award from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at a reception at Gracie
Mansion commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sylvia’s Restaurant. There was a
moment of silence before the award presentation; a family friend accepted it on
her behalf.
Sylvia’s Restaurant opened on Aug. 1, 1962 —
with six booths and 15 stools — at Lenox Avenue near 127th Street, offering
soul-food staples like ribs, hot cakes, corn bread and fried chicken. The
immense popularity of its dishes earned Ms. Woods the sobriquet the Queen of
Soul Food.
A culinary anchor and the de facto social center of Harlem, Sylvia’s has served the likes of Roberta Flack; Quincy Jones; Diana Ross; Muhammad Ali; Bill Clinton; Jack Kemp; Robert F. Kennedy; and, besides Mr. Bloomberg, Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins, who was partial, Ms. Woods said, to the chicken, candied yams, collard greens and black-eyed peas with rice.
A culinary anchor and the de facto social center of Harlem, Sylvia’s has served the likes of Roberta Flack; Quincy Jones; Diana Ross; Muhammad Ali; Bill Clinton; Jack Kemp; Robert F. Kennedy; and, besides Mr. Bloomberg, Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins, who was partial, Ms. Woods said, to the chicken, candied yams, collard greens and black-eyed peas with rice.
Busloads of tourists from as far away as
Japan routinely descend on the place.
Spike Lee used the restaurant as a location
for his 1991 film “Jungle Fever.”
Sylvia’s inspired two cookbooks by Ms.
Woods, “Sylvia’s Soul Food: Recipes From Harlem’s World Famous Restaurant”
(1992; with Christopher Styler) and
“Sylvia’s Family Soul Food Cookbook: From Hemingway, South Carolina, to Harlem”
(1999; with Melissa Clark).
The daughter of a farming couple, Van and Julia Pressley, Sylvia Pressley was born in Hemingway on Feb. 2, 1926; her father died when she was a baby.
The daughter of a farming couple, Van and Julia Pressley, Sylvia Pressley was born in Hemingway on Feb. 2, 1926; her father died when she was a baby.
The first thing she cooked as a girl, she
recalled, was a pot of rice on the family’s wood stove. But the rice burned
after Sylvia ran out to play and left it to cook on its own, a fact she withheld
from her mother. A switching ensued.
“I got punished,” Ms. Woods told The Post
and Courier of Charleston, S.C., in 1999, “but not for burning it — for telling
a lie.”
Sylvia met her future husband, Herbert Deward Woods, when she was 11 and he was 12 and both were working in the fields, picking beans under the blazing sun.
As a teenager, Sylvia moved to New York to join her mother, who had gone there for work. She found work herself, in a hat factory in Queens. In 1944, she married Mr. Woods, who had come North for her.
Sylvia met her future husband, Herbert Deward Woods, when she was 11 and he was 12 and both were working in the fields, picking beans under the blazing sun.
As a teenager, Sylvia moved to New York to join her mother, who had gone there for work. She found work herself, in a hat factory in Queens. In 1944, she married Mr. Woods, who had come North for her.
In the 1950s, Ms. Woods began work as a
waitress at Johnson’s Luncheonette in Harlem; because she had grown up poor in
the Jim Crow era, the day she first set foot in the place was the first time she
had been inside a restaurant anywhere.
In 1962, with help from her mother, who
mortgaged the family farm, Ms. Woods bought the luncheonette and renamed it
Sylvia’s. Three decades ago, Gael Greene, the food critic of New York magazine,
wrote a laudatory article on Sylvia’s, sealing the restaurant’s success.
Over time, Sylvia’s expanded to seat more than 250; it is the cornerstone of a commercial empire that today includes a catering service and banquet hall and a nationally distributed line of prepared foods.
Ms. Woods, known for her effusive warmth in greeting customers, ran the business until her retirement at 80.
Over time, Sylvia’s expanded to seat more than 250; it is the cornerstone of a commercial empire that today includes a catering service and banquet hall and a nationally distributed line of prepared foods.
Ms. Woods, known for her effusive warmth in greeting customers, ran the business until her retirement at 80.
“I keep pressing on,” she told The New York
Times in 1994. “I can’t give up. I’ve been struggling too long to stop
now.”
Mr. Woods, her self-effacing but stalwart
partner in the venture, died in 2001. Survivors include her sons, Van and
Kenneth; her daughters, Bedelia Woods and Crizette Woods; 18 grandchildren; five
great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.
A major factor in Sylvia’s enduring appeal, Ms. Woods learned firsthand, was the time-honored conservatism of its cooking. Toward the end of the 20th century, in deference to an increasingly health-conscious public, Ms. Woods chose to supplement the menu with lighter fare.
A major factor in Sylvia’s enduring appeal, Ms. Woods learned firsthand, was the time-honored conservatism of its cooking. Toward the end of the 20th century, in deference to an increasingly health-conscious public, Ms. Woods chose to supplement the menu with lighter fare.
“We had lots of salads and stuff,” she told
The Philadelphia Daily News in 1999. “And it went to waste. When people come
here, they got in their mind what they want.”
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