Sylvia's Restaurant of Harlem (often called "Sylvia's Soul Food" or just "Sylvia's") is a soul food restaurant in New York City. It was founded in 1962 by Sylvia Woods. It has since expanded to a much larger space at 328 Lenox Avenue (Lenox and 127th Street), and an adjacent building. The restaurant also sells a line of prepared foods, beauty and skin care items, cookbooks, and a children's book written by Woods.
Woods purchased the original luncheonette by borrowing money from her mother, who had to mortgage her farm to provide it. "I know I had to make it or else my mama was gonna lose her farm. So I gave it all that I had to give," Woods later explained.
The restaurant attracts a clientele that ranges from Harlem locals to visiting celebrities. Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Caroline Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Magic Johnson are among those who have dined there.
On September 19, 2007, commentator Bill O'Reilly spoke about having lunch at Sylvia's with Al Sharpton on his syndicated radio show. O'Reilly generated controversy with his comments on the restaurant, expressing that the predominantly African-American clientele acted friendly, polite, and did not use obscenities in their speech. O' Reilly reported that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship."[1] These remarks were considered by some to be evidence of latent racism, something O'Reilly had been accused of in the past.[1][2] O'Reilly responded that his remarks were taken out of context and that he had told listeners how his grandmother – and many other white Americans – feared blacks because they didn't know any and were swayed by violent images in black culture.[3][4] O'Reilly responded, saying, "It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference black, white, we’re all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true."[5] O'Reilly said, "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism."[6] National Public Radio host and fellow Fox News commentator Juan Williams said the criticism of O'Reilly was “rank dishonesty” and that the original comments "had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except by these idiots at CNN," whose commentator Roland S. Martin accused O'Reilly of racism because of the incident. Williams went on to say it was frustrating that the media try to criticize anyone who wanted to have an honest discussion about race.[7]