	Howard married Ben Knight, one of her coworkers at Voyage, and the two started a soup delivery business out of their apartment in Harlem, an effort that included chilling soup in the bathtub. Despite offers from investors to open a brick and mortar location in New York, the couple agreed to accept Howard’s parents' offer to buy a restaurant in Kinston. Howard and Knight moved to North Carolina in 2005 and opened Chef & the Farmer in 2006 in a downtown building that was previously a mule stable. More than 60% of the ingredients used in the restaurant come from within a 90-mile radius.