Woods: queen of soul food

Nation's Restaurant News, March 8, 1993 by Pamela Parseghian

Sylvia Woods, who has been dubbed "The Queen of Soul Food," is simply "Mom" to her employees.

"She is like a mother," said waitress Evelyn Jamison, who has worked for Woods for 23 years. "When we do wrong, she gives us pure hell. But she really helps us a lot with good advice."

Woods, owner of Sylvia's in Harlem, New York, encouraged Jamison to buy her own home and open a late-night social club, which she runs after work.

"The first thing I tell them [her staff] is to save their money," said 67-year-old Woods. She has helped employees, many of whom have started with nothing. She has arranged such essentials as phone hookups and apartment searches.

"I like to see progress," she said. Woods born on a South Carolina farm, complete with hogs, cotton and cows, now owns a large home in New York's prosperous Westchester County. "I didn't like any part of farm life," she said.

As a child, she wondered why she had to walk to her small, old-fashioned schoolhouse while the white kids were driven to a modern school in a bus.

"I didn't understand why people would not let me drink out of the same water fountain, but they would trust me to cook for them and to take care of their dearest thing, their babies," she said.

Woods thinks racial discrimination has actually worsened since she was a child. "Job opportunities [for blacks] don't exist now," she said.

Sylvia's restaurant, with celebrity photos covering the walls, a tropical motif and red vinyl seats, has expanded from a storefront luncheonette to a four-dining room restaurant and a neighboring location used primarily for catering. Sylvia's has taken over most of the city block.

With 400 seats the restaurant can accommodate the busloads of tourists that come to see Harlem and taste the soul food that she grew up on, including collard greens, barbecued ribs, fried chicken, corn bread and peach cobbler.

Woods tries to greet most of the customers who flock to her soul food haven from places as near as her own neighborhood and as far away as Japan. "I love people, and I love to touch my customers," she said.

She said her most memorable day on the job was when she catered lunch at Yankee Stadium for Nelson Mandela, African National Congress leader.

Woods said she was influenced most by her mother, who worked the 35-acre family farm and raised her children single-handedly. As she explained. "My mother always said, 'If an ox is in a ditch, you've got to pull it out,'"

Woods' do-whatever-needs-to-be-done attitude has been an asset in gaining the confidence of her financial backers and setting an example for her employees to follow.

When asked about her management style, Woods replied, "I work with them and beside them, not behind them."

She was a waitress herself when she bought the restaurant 30 years ago, but she would jump in wherever she was needed, from deboning fish to cleaning the floor.

Woods stills works six days a week, charming the customers and overseeing operations. Her husband also worked at Sylvia's when the business began to grow. "Now Mr. Woods takes care of Mrs. Woods," she noted.

Woods has four of her own children and one adopted child, her restaurant.

"I wrap a blanket around this restaurant, and I nurture it like a baby."

All of her children work with her at Sylvia's now. Her son, Kenneth Woods, attributes his mother's success to "hard work and determination. She loves what she does and loves seeing people enjoy themselves," he said.