Vivian Howard closes Kinston oyster bar, says Chef & the Farmer won’t open this summer
The Boiler Room, chef Vivian Howard’s oyster bar and burger joint in Kinston, has closed permanently and won’t reopen on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic.
Howard said she informed the Boiler Room staff of the closing on Wednesday, the same day Gov. Roy Cooper announced a modest move into Phase Two of North Carolina’s reopening plan, which gives restaurants in the state the option to reopen at 50% capacity.
“For us, it’s really about looking at what things will be on the other side of this,” Howard said of the closing. “The only thing I’m grappling with is that as a group we’ll be smaller. We’re not able to bring everyone back. It’s heartbreaking.”
A more casual Chef & the Farmer
The closing of the Boiler Room, which Howard owned with husband Ben Knight, is part of a larger shift in the couple’s restaurant group, the chef said in a phone interview. When her flagship fine dining restaurant Chef & the Farmer reopens, she said it will be more casual, with lower prices in an effort to be more accessible.
But that reopening is still months away.
“We’re not going to reopen this summer,” Howard said. “I’m emphatic about that.”
Howard’s restaurants and the national fame generated by her PBS series “A Chef’s Life” helped revitalize a few blocks of downtown Kinston. Chef & the Farmer and the Boiler Room became destinations for fans and foodies traveling through Eastern North Carolina or making special trips to the restaurants themselves.
Because so many of the nightly guests were from out of town, half for the Boiler Room and likely more for Chef & the Farmer, Howard said her restaurants didn’t have the option of takeout for a small amount of revenue. Those restaurants have been closed since March and only this week did her Wilmington pizzeria, Benny’s Big Time, reopen for to-go orders.
“We’re different than the restaurants in Raleigh that have been able to do curbside pickup and takeout,” Howard said. “We have forever relied on people traveling to eat with us.”
‘It’s about evolving’
For the new Chef & the Farmer, Howard hopes to blend it and the Boiler Room. She didn’t want to talk menu specifics, but there will likely be a burger.
“We’re going to be able to open a restaurant that reflects the best of the Boiler Room and the best of Chef & the Farmer and make it more accessible,” Howard said. “I don’t think anything’s dying. I really think it’s about evolving.”
The closing of the Boiler Room was shared on the Facebook page of the Kinston tourism office, which mourned the loss of the restaurant as a popular spot for locals as well as tourists.
“It is with heartfelt disappointment that we learn today that our beloved Boiler Room Restaurant in downtown Kinston has announced it is permanently closed,” the tourism office said in a statement. “The Boiler Room added a special funky big city vibe to Kinston’s revitalized downtown, complimenting perfectly the mix of other new, entrepreneurial spirited businesses in what has arguably become the entertainment district of downtown.”
In the months between now and the reopening of Chef & the Farmer, Howard said she’s relying on revenue from her mail order bakeshop Handy & Hot, which has been selling jarred condiments by the hundreds.
In that future, on the other side of the coronavirus, Howard made it clear that the Boiler Room won’t return in a new location as a standalone restaurant. That future, she said, will be a simpler one.
“The thought was that bigger and more was better, but I don’t think that’s the case,” Howard said. “Smaller and better is better.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 1:22 PM.
