Torquay – Viva

This is all quite on-trend and shiny, it’s pretty much the games centre of Torquay harbour but with a bar attached. There are options for shuffleboard, mini golf, pool, axe throwing, electronic darts and several other exciting bits and pieces to be getting on with. It is all quite new, before Viva opened last year there was an upstairs nightclub called The Quay and downstairs was Harbour Fish and Chips. And previous to that, the upstairs in this grand building was used by Warriors Boxing and before that it was Play nightclub, so it’s had numerous changes over the years.

The bar is bright and garish, but it looks modern. There were very few other customers during our visit, although it was a Thursday evening and pouring down with rain. There are some photos of other parts of the building on the architect’s web-site.

The seating area is no less shiny than the bar, it’s all on point and new. I went for a half a pint of Camden Stout which actually didn’t taste of that, but regardless, it was creamy, smooth and tasted of a decent quality. The beer choice wasn’t quite as on-trend as the design, verging a bit on the generic and the safe. The service was though friendly, timely and efficient.

The bottomless brunch offer which is £35 for some food and endless cocktails. I’m not sure it’s something that would engender much excitement for me, but I rarely rule anything out. There’s a wide range of food served here, including burgers, loaded fries, nachos, chicken wings and other light bites options.

This is a venue that I’d like to come back to as we didn’t have time to explore the multitude of activities that were located here and I quite like all this competitive socialising type of thing. The level of investment made here must have been substantial, I can imagine that it’ll be a busy location come the summer months when the tourists flood in.