Viva Taqueria & Cantina — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

(August 2020) I am an Ithaca local who has tried to support all local businesses before and during COVID. However, I stopped supporting Viva long ago because of my and colleagues (predominantly BIPOC group) previous experiences with Viva Taqueria. My experiences with Viva are not typical of Ithaca culture and community, with BIPOC citizens. Except for Viva, I have never had an unpleasant experience in Ithaca that I thought was racially motivated. Additionally, I never write reviews unless I find the experience egregious, which makes this only the 2nd time in my life I have felt compelled to do so. The first was Amazon.

A friend wanted to meet for drinks at Viva, which I was not eager to do, because of previous bad experiences at Viva, resulting in the meal not being, AGAIN. I am also one for giving second and third tries, but I am done. Instead of writing bad reviews, especially in this climate I prefer to just not patronize the establishment. In any case, I indulged my friend in going to Viva. We put our name on the wait list, but there was a 35-minute wait, which turned out to be 10 minutes. Usually this change in timing is fine, except we had already ordered a light snack and a drink (as required by NY law) at another establishment to wait our turn. We asked Viva for an extension, they then called less than 10 minutes later. In response, we proceeded to have one of our drinks (less than an inch of liquid) put into a covered container so we could go to VIVA. One Viva hostess greeted us and another sat us (covered drink in hand). AND THEN the most unpleasant and angry waiter I have experienced approached our table initiating the following exchange:

Waiter: Is that an outside Drink? *Very tense and angry body language with no previous interaction My friend: “Yes?” Waiter: You either need to give me the drink or take it onto the street? *Friend proceeds to drink whatever she had left Waiter: Are you ready to order? Me: Yes, I’d like a margarita and a burrito Waiter: We have decided not to serve you alcohol Me: What did you just say? Waiter: Since she brought in a drink, which jeopardizes our liquor license, we will not be serving either of you alcohol, but you can order food Me: We will not be ordering anything *I tell the very pleasant hostess to please get your manager. She very nicely gets the manager *Manager approaches our table Me to the manager: Our waiter just very rudely and angrily told us he will not be serving us drinks, which could have been handled better: 1) if the drink was such a problem, jeopardizing your liquor license, why didn’t the waiter or the two hostesses tell us this as we were being seated lead or when he first approached the table? 2) Why am I not being served a drink, because she brought in a drink? What would have happened if there was a party of 5 or 10, would you have effectively sent them on their way?; 3) There’s no sign saying “no outside food or drinks” given the new NYS to-go laws, where a lot of bars and restaurants provide (non)alcoholic drinks in to-go cups, as evidenced by the cup we brought here Manager: (Deer-in-head-lights look after a couple awkward minutes of silence) I am sorry for the miscommunication, we are trying to understand the laws and he should have behaved better. *Manager stands next to table and stares at us with confused look Me: This was not a miscommunication, this was just rude and wrong. We area leaving and I have no plans of ever returning to Viva. *We get up and leave for another restaurant

It’s clear that Viva does not need the support of the BIPOC members of Ithaca’s community, but this experience is common knowledge amongst the particular Cornell community with which I interact. I hope...

Visited during apple fest, and due to the fest, could reasonably understand some chaos had it been busy, but we came at 4:30 well before dinner rush, and our section was very empty. We sat for several mins before we were greeted by a woman and she said nick would be right with us and she grabbed us waters. Several minutes after that we were greeted by Gabe, and we put an order of 2 tequila shots, 2 frozen raspberry margaritas one w sugar and one w salt rim, and an app. When ordering he said oh I put that one in as virgin you didnt want that did you? We confirmed, not virgin. The shots arrived visibly uneven and we had to pour from one to even them out, and one of the margaritas tasted like it didnt have any alcohol. We both tasted each multiple times before concluding the one didnt have the very specific after taste that agave has. We've been here close to an hour now and havent been able to put our entrees in. We tried to grab our server Gabe a few times, (which at one point nick did come over and say, hi, i'm nick ill be your server to which we said oh, it looks like gabe grabbed us, nick and gabe then had a weird little encounter at our table). After flagging Gabe and having to ask to put in our food order we mentioned the one drink tasted off and he pushed back, said it was from the same batch but then asked if we wanted a new one, we said we wouldn't mind a remake just for peace of mind. He takes the drink away, then a different guy, bartender i think comes out with the same drink and tells us they wont remake it and that it definitely has alcohol. He was standoffish and made us feel bad for mentioning it. We both have worked in food service and its not easy for us to make a complaint, but we were originally going to stay until the concert at the theater and we wanted to order a few rounds of drinks, and $15 for a drink that doesn't taste like the other "identical" drink was too much. We say ok to them not remaking it, but we arent gonna drink the original one because they took it back to the kitchen and returned it, and the general tone/vibe has been unpleasant now and we just want to pay and go, we're super uncomfortable at this point. The drink is visibly undrank minus the sips we took when trying to determine if it had tequila in it. We then are approached by Sofia who could tell something was awry, she asks if everything is ok. we explained what happened and she said she'd talk to our server. She came back and said the drink wouldn't be comped, but then our server Gabe then came over and said the drink would be comped. At this point we've spoken to 5 staff members none of which have been on the same page, the girls were nice but the guys were varying degrees of discombobulated, and unprofessional. We felt we had been very apologetic and nice, we dont like conflict and we didnt want to cause a scene we just didn't want to pay for a drink we didnt like or had more than a few sips of. Overall experience, the service was rough, it took a very long time for a non busy restaurant to greet us, take our drink order, we had to flag the server down to put in our food order and when it arrived it was medicore. In the end they did comp the drink but the whole back and forth ordeal was uncomfortable, the miscommunication between multiple servers, slow service and the drink errors made for an unpleasant experience and we will not...

Viva was a wonderful dinner experience while staying in Ithaca! We only had one night in the city for dinner, and I am glad we picked Viva! Located right along the Commons, its in a great location. It was VERY busy on a Saturday night but the wait was not bad- only 15 minutes! They have a large inside dining area and a really beautiful outdoor seating area which faces the Commons walking area- so it was nice to dine & people watch & enjoy the fresh air.

We came here because they not only had a regular Mexican menu but a nice selection of vegan choices (which was all labeled clearly) The staff was kind & friendly, even on a clearly very busy night.

What we got:

Vegan nachos - WOW. These were AMAZING!! It was a nice sized plate which filled the two of us plenty. The nachos were crispy, and the toppings were great. It came with beans, rice, veggies, gauc & a creamy sauce. ALL VEGAN. It had so much flavor.

Vegan tofu taco - They used Ithacas own brand tofu which was flavored well. It came with pickled slaw & gauc. The corn tortillas were soft & fresh.

Chicken enchilada (not vegan) - Decent sized, smothered in sauce & fresh. My husband enjoyed it but commented that it was actually VERY spicy. He enjoyed it.

I love that they have really good quality Mexican food with a nice selection of vegan choices. My only thing to point out is maybe offer vegan cheese? Vegan sour cream? The tofu was great, and I love that their beans/rice is vegetarian (a lot of Mexican places use meat bases in their rice/beans) but offering vegan cheese or even vegan sour cream would just elevate the dishes even more. Just something to point out. We LOVED our dinner here & were happy we chose this spot for our dinner date...