VIVO Restaurant and Bar

One of my favorite places to eat in the area!!! My husband and I discovered Vivo while dealing with the aftermath of a car accident last summer. Since then we’ve been back multiple times– we even hosted my birthday party here. Very reasonable pricing to rent out the lounge space. Just this week we took advantage of one of their cooking classes. The customer service is excellent and we haven’t had a bad dish yet! My husband loves the sticky rice with shrimp and Viet sausage. The fresh rolls and coconut chicken curry are my favorites and don’t skip the strawberry egg rolls!

Vivo is the best place to go on new year. I had a really good time, I went to the casino. Spent a lot of money, had the worst time, so I said I will go to Vivo, they where very kind and a lot of fun. I will eat there and go to all there events. Nice job.

Great soups. Not impressed with some of the food not very flavorful. Service is fantastic!

Late to review. Went there on a Wed in July for dinner. They were not busy. Food was awesome. Glad to see some variety out here.

Good phở in West Virginia, WHAT!!! Yes I said it. I know I wasn’t really expecting much coming from Los Angeles where Phở runs rampant in almost every city. The number of phở restaurants I have been to is beyond what I can remember and too many for my hands and feet to count.
It was my first time in West Virginia and I really wanted something that reminded me of back home and all I could think of was getting a bowl of phở. I was pleasantly surprised at the cleanliness of the restaurant compared to the average phở places I have been to. Every aspect of Vivo is to bring a new phở dining experience to its patrons. Before I ordered I really didn’t know what to expect from a phở restaurant in West Virginia but after my first spoon full of phở broth I was amazed at how good it actually was. The broth was full of flavor and not watered down filled with fresh ingredients that looked ready for a photo op. The food was great and service was excellent. If you want a bowl of authentic phở in West Virginia this is the place to go.
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This place is great. I’ve eaten there many times, the food is always great. Recently, I was sick and they made me their famous and delicious beef lemongrass soup before their normal business hours. This is a great family owned and operated local restaurant.

This was by far one of the best meals I’ve ever had. We started the day with a couples massage at the spa and it was suggested we try their restaurant. We thought at first, ‘Vietnamese food? Meh’. But opted to try something new any way. OMG. seriously. Everything we had, appetizer, entrée, bar, dessert, to die for!!! We are from the eastern shore, liked it so much were planning a trip back to the area just so that we can eat here again. It was THAT good. I don’t know what happened for these other people who had bad experiences mentioned here, but clearly this restaurant has fixed whatever hiccups they were experiencing. Jeannie was our server and couldn’t have known this menu and the recipes better if she had written them herself. Top notch.

Good food but a little on the pricey side. Atmosphere is not what you would expect for the prices that they’re charging.

Ok this place is the definition of a hidden gem. We ordered the fresh shrimp and pork spring rolls as our first appetizer– they came packed with rice noodles, shrimp, pork, fresh cilantro and Bibb lettuce they were delicious– absolutely made when ordered not stale or soggy at all. The tamarind sauce they were served with was so good I literally wiped the ramekin clean with my finger. We looked through the menu and my husband saw pan seared scallops served with sweet potato purée so we ordered a second app. They were small, but vey tasty! The sweet potato purée they were served on top of was smokey, flavorful and just fantastic. I ordered the garlic shrimp, extra spicy it came out a little spicy, but the waitress sis bring me a variety of hot sauces they have so I was able to kick it up a bit, despite not being hotter than hell the flavor was incredible. My husband ordered the salmon with asparagus, he just about licked the plate he said it was so good. The rice was so sticky and done perfectly. Everything was plated beautifully, service was fantastic and the menu was really very exciting. The service was prompt and I can not wait to go back here. Love this place! Definitely give it a shot!

Wow. I finally came back here to try the food and I wasn’t disappointed. I had the egg roll appetizer and it was crisp and pipping hot and filled with very flavorful pork. We also ordered the lemongrass beef and the chicken curry. Both were delicious and busting with flavor. We topped it all off with the strawberry egg rolls. It was really yummy, but not too sweet. Overall an excellent experience with attentive and friendly service. I’ll definitely be back and I highly recommend. We need more restaurants like this in Charles Town.

The Turkey Spring rolls with peanut sauce are awesome. We have eaten here several times and have never been disappointed. My husband loves the Screaming Beef. The Chicken Phở is very tasty. I had the Orange Glazed Salmon with asparagus and it was very good. I took some home and had it the next day and it was even better. The shipwreck mixed cocktail is tasty as well. They offer really good specials too.

Stopped off at Vivo after work and really liked it.
Service was very good, staff is polite, attentive and professional. Sometimes it’s the little things like each waitress checked my drink and refilled my tea when I was out, I didn’t have to wait for «my» waitress to notice.
I had a bowl of Phở and some shrimp spring rolls. Both were very good.
I would prefer if they offered 2 sizes of Phở since sometime the huge bowl is a bit much but it was very good.
I covertly checked out the other tables food and each dish looked good.
They take time to prepare the dishes right, this may be slower that some would like, but I will wait for quality, and I think speed will improve over time. I would like to go there during a rush to see how it is handled.
I am a bit concerned that their price points might be a bit high for the area, the Phở was good, but $ 4 more than most Phở in the DC metro area. That might hurt them in the long run.
I will be going back, hope the quality continues.
After dinner I stopped in the Bar area. Very nice relaxed club feel. Couches, few TVs, very clean classy feel. Nice place to hang out.

Unless you’re afraid to try something new. This is the place for you! They had a variety of delicious options and all of them looked amazing– naturally, I had to make a decision eventually so I got the jasmine rice with lemongrass chicken and finished it off with some jasmine tea with local honey and some strawberry egg rolls covered in homemade chocolate sauce… Our food was amazing and our server was fun, helpful, and very polite. He went out of his way to make our dinner extra special. I love this place and I’ll definitely be back!

I’ve been here twice already and am hesitant to come back a third time. The wait for the phở took way too long for a broth that should have already been prepared beforehand. At a typical restaurant itshould take about 10 – 15 minutes but it took almost an hour here. And they really skimp out on bean sprouts and vegetables for the phở. I received a small handful the second time I came in. Also, both times I’ve come to get the phở and the broth came out warm and barely cooked the steak.
I’m super disappointed because I was looking forward to finally having a phở place near me instead of having to drive to northern Virginia for it but this place is not worth the time or money for me.

I have not been back to Vivo, the food was good. I enjoyed it but every time i would get the wrong order. I ordered egg rolls once and my waiter gives my a dinner instead. Most customers would not complain. But inconsistence is kinda annoying. I love the food. But the wait time is too long. And the waiter always forgets something from my order. Or he walks away and don’t see our server. For a real long time. Just annoying that these little things are so easily fixed. Please work on Serves and it will be better.

Never going back, poor service no food waited 2 hours recieved wrong fod, my wife never received hers. Manager went to find hers and never returned.

I have been twice now. First visit was opening night so waiting 3 hours for soup was expected, I guess. The next visit was 2 weeks ago and still waited for ever for a beer and soup. My soup was cold and so salty I had to put my water in it to make it easier to get down my throat. There where only 3 other customers, the wait staff tried their best. When I asked for my soup to be heated up, I was told in was supposed to be cold. This is the same meal I ordered in February and waited 3 hours for but the soup was warm then. I will only go back on some one else’s dime. I will no longer waste my time or money on this place. Very disappointing, I want to support local businesses, but I have to draw the line here.

This is one of those places that proves that just because someone can cook, doesn’t mean they know how to run a restaurant. The food — whenever it finally arrives — is good, but the kitchen is a wreck and takes a ridiculous amount of time. I have been here four times at this point, and won’t be going back for quite some time as they just don’t seem to be getting any better.
The first time I went, we sat at the bar. The people beside us ordered 2 minutes before us, yet their food came out 45 minutes before ours. We had only ordered egg rolls and 2 bowls of phở. After 20 minutes, we received spring rolls which we did not order because the ktichen made a mistake. 15 minutes after that, we finally got our egg rolls. By the time our phở showed up, it had been almost an hour. I expect service to be slow when a place first opens — but this was with a limited menu. Soup and egg rolls should be able to fly out of that kitchen much faster.
The second time, we skipped the appetizers, hoping that if we only got phở it would come out faster. And it did come out slightly faster — it only took 40 minutes to get soup this time. The third and fourth time we had much the same experience — good food, but terrible wait times for what are easy dishes that should fly out of a well run kitchen.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether you have a reservation or not, or whether you sit at the bar or a table, the food just is not made quickly. At least our bowls of phở usually arrived together. One thing that the kitchen staff really does not seem to get is that when a family of four gets a table together, they would like to actually eat together. People generally don’t want one entrée to come out, and then be forced to decide between being rude and eating while no one else at the table had food or having to wait and watch their food cool as it takes 15 to 30 minutes for the rest of the table to get their food.
Sadly, it will probably get worse in the near future, as they are having these horrible wait times with a very limited menu, but they are planning to launch the full menu in March, which will only confuse and slow down the kitchen even more.
Maybe by May they will be able to run the kitchen well enough to get food out in a timely manner. Right now, it’s actually faster for me to go to the Lucky Corner in Frederick and pick up take out than to sit at Vivo and wait for food there.

My food, drink, and service was superb both times I have been there! Remember they just opened so being patient would be a virtue, wouldn’t want to run off the first good place in the area.

The Phở is 5 star, the service was 2 star. I know this is their first Saturday evening and they are still getting their legs underneath them. The food was really good…