Sylvia’s Restaurant: Queen of Soul Food

My son graduated from The Institute of Audio Research yesterday at the world famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem here in NY City.  Congrats Lee!!  You did great! The Apollo has seen many famous people including Ella Fitzgerald, Gladys Knight, Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle, Stevie Wonder and many others. The theatre is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

To celebrate we all went out for lunch at the world famous Sylvia’s Restaurant who is the Queen of Soul Food. Sylvia’s is located a few blocks away from the theatre and she is known for home cooked “soul food” since 1962.  Her restaurant has seen some famous personalities including Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Caroline Kennedy, Magic Johnson and others.  


I don’t like giving bad reviews but I feel that if I say Sylvia’s is a great place, I would be lying. I heard so much about Sylvia’s that I figured since we were going to be up in Harlem for my son’s graduation, we should try out her restaurant. The one good thing is that we didn’t have to wait long.  About 10 mins at the most.  The food was average at best, nothing special.  The portions were also average as I heard they give huge portions with enough to take half of it home to have for a full meal the next day.  I really don’t think so.  Now the really bad part….the service.  Not only was it very slow, it was bad.  I don’t know if it was the waitress that we had, or if that is how all the wait staff are. We went there with my son, my husband, myself, my mom and a friend.  My friend ordered the hamburger and since she is allergic to sesame seeds, she asked if the bun had seeds on it.  The waitress told her no it was plain.  Ok great!  After waiting about 20 mins for the food, they brought out our order and her hamburger with a bun that had seeds on it.  Our waitress said that she would go and get her a new bun.  Well we waited and waited and nobody came and brought it out.  So my friend asked 2 busboys….still nothing.  Finally the waitress came back and at this point her food was cold and she wanted new food.  The waitress seemed a bit annoyed but agreed to bring her a new plate of food.  That took another 10 minutes.  So all in all, it was not a great experience. All she had to do was run back into the kitchen to get a new bun which would have taken all of a couple mins at the most. Another complaint that I have is with their iced tea.  The iced tea on their menu is sweetened. I love iced tea but don’t like it with sugar as I add 1 pkg of Equal. Now I know southern food is big with that “Sweet Tea”, which is fine, but there really should be an unsweetened option.  It was also very warm in there as I don’t think they had the air conditioning on high enough.  


I really don’t know what all the hype is, so I’m going to say that I probably won’t go back.