The Beginning
The ‘soul’ of Sylvia’s started to come together in 1944, during the Great Migration, when Sylvia Woods moved from her hometown of Hemingway, South Carolina to Harlem, USA with her husband Herbert Deward Woods. The childhood sweethearts settled in a tenement on 131st Street in a land where Black people were able to create freely and hold positions of pride. One day as Woods walked down 126th Street and Lenox Avenue, she noticed Johnson’s Luncheonette’s help wanted sign. She stepped inside to inquire about the notice and despite having no restaurant business experience, Woods persuaded the owner, Andrew Johnson, to hire her as a waitress due to her unmatched work ethic. Woods left behind a dreaded factory job in Queens and became a familiar face in the neighborhood.
Home to 35 seats, the eatery boasted a family-like atmosphere. Johnson, also a South Carolina native, took notice of Woods’ determination. Given his real estate investments, he decided to sell the luncheonette to Woods whose entrepreneurial spirit kept the restaurant’s presence alive. Woods asked her mother, who owned a farm in her hometown, to take out a second mortgage on the land to purchase the business.
Her mother agreed and within a year of operation since opening on August 1, 1962, Woods repaid her plus interest. The importance of land and ownership, a belief that Woods learned from the matriarchs in her family, inspired her to purchase real estate surrounding the restaurant, which now adorned her first name in the form of proprietorship.