Sylvia Woods

Who was Sylvia Woods?

Sylvia Woods was an American restaurateur who co-founded the landmark restaurant Sylvia's in Harlem on Lenox Avenue, New York City with her husband, Herbert Woods, in 1962. The soul food eatery is a popular gathering place for Harlem residents and tourists not far from the Apollo Theater.

Sylvia was born to Julia and Van Pressley in Hemingway, South Carolina. Her father, Van Pressley, died when she was just three days old from complications of injuries he received during combat in World War I. By April 10, 1930, she had lived in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, with her grandmother Sylvia Johnson, the woman she was named after. Johnson had worked as a farmer, a trade that Pressley would get into when she got a little older. Research of Sylvia's ancestry is being conducted by Yonkers, New York resident Dennis Richmond Jr. In 1930, Sylvia's mother took the rest of her family to New York when so she could better provide for her family, leaving her grandmother, Sylvia Johnson to raise three year old Sylvia.

Woods met her future husband, Herbert, in a bean field when she was 11 years old and he was 12. They married in 1944 after he followed her to New York. They had four children together: Van, Bedelia, Kenneth, and Crizette. Woods graduated from high school in her hometown of Hemingway, South Carolina. She trained to become a beautician in New York, and also ran a beauty shop in South Carolina. Woods also worked in a hat factory, and as a waitress at a restaurant called Johnson’s Luncheonette in Harlem from 1954 to 1962.