Sylvia Woods, Who Started Harlem Restaurant, Dies The founder of the famed Harlem soul food restaurant Sylvia's has died. Sylvia Woods was 86. Her granddaughter Tren'ness Woods-Black said Woods died Thursday afternoon at her home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. She had been dealing with Alzheimer's disease for the past few years. Woods and her husband Herbert started Sylvia's Restaurant in 1962. The restaurant became a fixture, with tourists and locals coming there for cornbread, ribs, collard greens, fried chicken and other staples of Southern cooking. Woods-Black said her grandmother had officially stepped down from running the restaurant when she was 80, leaving it in the hands of her children and grandchildren. Herbert Woods died in 2001.