The Joy of Black Brunch

It still thrill at the memory of the last time I went to Woodland, a two-floor restaurant down the block from Barclays Center, for a sweat-inducing birthday gathering. We’d been seated near DJ Yung Hova, whose bass-heavy mixes of hip-hop, soca, and reggae, all reflecting New York City’s robust West Indian immigrant population, slowly turned the space into a full-blown party. Neighbors hoisted their sloshing drinks in the air and gyrated their hips as a conga line of happily fed patrons — whose high-heels had shifted impatiently beneath them while waiting to be seated — turned raucous and jubilant to the same songs that power the annual Eastern Parkway Labor Day parade. It wasn’t deep into Friday or Saturday night, though — it was just a normal black brunch, a scene repeated every Sunday afternoon like clockwork.

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