Vivo! Dolphin
Mall Opens With
Food, Bull
Riding, and a
Free Daya
Performance
Vivo! Dolphin Mall Opens With Food, Bull Riding, and a Free Daya Performance
Miami has a new party spot with restaurants, concerts, and mechanical bull riding.
After announcing its first Florida complex earlier this year, Live! Hospitality & Entertainment – a division of the Cordish Companies that builds dining, entertainment, and nightlife destinations nationwide – officially opens Vivo! Dolphin Mall today at 11:30 a.m.
“We are ready to rock,” Judy Moore, senior vice president at Live! tells New Times. “We have our stage that’s fully covered, we have our restaurants and food trucks that are ready to go, and all that we’re missing are all the people that will enjoy this space with us.”
On the culinary front and in the weeks leading up to opening day, the menus at the complex were finalized. Core restaurants within the Vivo! space includes the PBR Miami cowboy bar with a mechanical bull, Sergio’s Cuban American Kitchen, the Crush Bar serving Maryland-bred crush-style beverages, and a Blue Moon Garden Bar.
Sports & Social is a culinary and entertainment highlight – a 17,000-square-foot sports bar venue with three bars, arcade games, a 50-foot LED screen, and sound and lighting effects that help mimic an in-stadium experience.
“For a lot of our menu items here in Miami, we’ve put a real creative spin on some of our staples, and we’ve created some totally new things,” says chef John Suley, vice president of culinary for Live! and a James Beard Award nominee. “We’re not only going for delicious food here but want it to be Instagram-worthy and upscale.”
Among the dishes with the most flair at Sports & Social are a ceviche topped with corn nuts and leche de tigre ($13), pork carnitas nachos with charred green tomatillo salsa and pickled onions ($21), and a Latin kale Caesar salad with cilantro-pepita caesar dressing ($12).
On the flashier side, its signature tower feeds four to six diners and includes loaded nachos, loaded totchos (tater tot nachos), traditional and boneless wings, cacio e pepe arancini, and fries for $50. The spot’s signature sundae, topped with a sparkler and “whimsical” toppings like Pop Rocks and gummy bears, runs $20 and feeds two to four sugar fiends.
To celebrate its grand opening, Vivo! Dolphin Mall will host a ten-day celebration with events aplenty. The multi-day party kicks off with a performance by multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning artist Daya this evening at 9 p.m. Admission is free with an RSVP.
Additional event highlights include a mimosa bar crawl (June 25), a sunset yoga session (June 28), and a concert by DJ Irie (June 30). A complete list of events is available on the Vivo! Dolphin Mall website.
“This is all about food, fun, family, friends, and hospitality. We touch on all of these things so well,” says Moore. “When you walk into our spaces, and especially here in South Florida, we want you to feel that plethora of energy.”