Viva Chicken — Restaurant in Greenville

I had been wanting to stop in here for a long time because the signage kind of draws your attention, so we decided to eat there at the last half of lunchtime rush. There were no seats available in the small dining area, so we sat outside with several others. Let me just say the cashier was not all smiles and happiness (I almost left before we ordered, first impressions, right?), but the other servers were super. I tried the quarter chicken, fried rice, and plantains and my wife the salad with chicken salad. The plantains were fabulous. I am guessing the secret to this place is the sauce you choose. It was also great. I chose yellow (mild) to be on the safe side, and it was something between honey mustard and yellow barbecue sauce, very smart and good. The fried rice had no flavor, so I poured it on the rice. The quarter chicken was so small I had to search for the leg to find it. For what we paid, it should have been one of those Sam's Club size quarters. The meat was very tender and indicated a slow cook, but again, no real flavor. I shredded the small amount of meat and added it to the fried rice and yellow sauce and made a meal from it. The salad seemed a lot like those nouveau hip-style salads with hominy, feta, tofu, maybe (I was not sure). I was not really impressed with the $5 upcharge for a scoop of chicken salad on an already $10 salad with no meat. It was really good, though. My wife let me finish hers because I was still hungry after I finished my scrawny little leg quarter. All in all, it is a decent lunch stop if you have plenty to spend and you're tired of Chicken Salad Chick across the street, but make sure you choose your sauce well. That will make or break the experience because the rest of the flagship chicken plate is kind of okay to bland. The salad was interesante, I guess. This was probably our first and last visit. I was a little...

My outing started out at the Haywood Mall for some back to school shopping with some family members. We decided to do lunch after our shopping. Our first choice was an old standby Copper River, we actually pulled in the parking lot, then decided to give Viva Chicken a try. Viva Chicken is a Peruvian Restaurant, I of course looked it up and Yelp, told my family that the rating was good. Viva Chicken wasn’t very crowded. We were undecided about what we wanted to eat, my sister ordered the half chicken, it comes with two sides. For her two sides she got fries and fresh fruit. The sandwiches and wraps come with one side. Both of my nieces got the Inca Wrap with pulled rotisserie chicken with one side. For their sides they got fries and green beans. I placed my order last. I got The Great, it’s a chicken sandwich with your choice of pulled dark or white meat chicken(I got white meat, $1.85 charge for this choice), ciabatta bread or a sun dried tomato wrap.The young man at the check out suggested that I try it on ciabatta bread. It comes with pulled rotisserie chicken, lettuce, tomato, red onions and a Rocoto mayo, with your choice of a side sauce. The side sauce I got was a lightly mustard based sauce, with a little heat to it. The pulled chicken was not actual pulled chicken, more like boiled chicken chunks. The chicken had no seasoning to it, and it had very little of the mayo on it. The sandwich was only ok for me, adding the sauce and some salt and pepper helped make it taste better. I only ate half of the sandwich. The green beans were sautéed with red bell peppers, and with what tasted like garlic and some lemon juice. I didn’t want the green beans cooked to death, but I didn’t want to eat crunchy green beans. I would have enjoyed the old standby Copper River a lot more than I did Viva Chicken. Btw my family members are in agreement...

TLDR: The reviews oversell mediocre, overpriced food with poor service. Like so many modern fast casual places the gimic attempts to hide the deep flaws at this restaurant.

I tend to judge food based on value, flavor, and uniqueness. Despite the hype, Viva was bland, overpriced, and basic. The food relies on add your own sauces for any kind of flavor and is mostly just standard recipes with more rare versions of ingredients. What you get is an unrefined version of other people's recipes for a higher cost. Even through the menu shows lower prices they hide a $4 charge for the chicken the restaurant features on almost everything. My $14 salad tasted like the dressing with stringy chicken while my wife's fried rice tasted like absolutely nothing.

The atmosphere is that of a fast food joint but the staff seemed irritated when we asked for our food to go. We had to repeat our order three times and the lady doing the checkout had to be convinced that I didn't want to give her my phone number because I was standing in front of her. The extra hard sell for overpriced specialty drinks and sides was definitely not welcome. When our food finally came out no cutlery or napkins were on offer and we had to go back in and wait to catch the attention of those behind the counter.

For me, it's food. I'm not making a detour to go there and I'm not getting excited about anything on the menu. I would have preferred Costco chicken over spring mix to their version of a salad and my wife would have preferred packet ramen to their fried rice. It gets two stars because it was edible...