The future of Plymouth’s Pho Vietnamese restaurant is in doubt after bosses closed it “temporarily”. The £800,000 eatery only opened in the Royal William Yard in July 2022 but is now being shuttered due to “ongoing local trading conditions”.
Staff told PlymouthLive the restaurant was “closed until further notice” and bosses then said they were consulting on the future of the outlet.
A Pho Spokesperson said: “It has been a pleasure working with our teams and serving our customers in Plymouth for the past two years, but unfortunately due to ongoing local trading conditions, we have taken the decision to temporarily close our doors at Royal William Yard. We are extremely thankful to our hard-working staff, and supporting them is our top priority as we consult on the future of the restaurant.”
Pho has removed Plymouth from its list of restaurants on its website. There are 45 others listed, the next nearest is in Exeter.
If Pho shuts permanently it won’t be the first restaurant to pull out of the historic former naval victualling yard. In April 2024, South West burger chain Hub Box shut its Royal William Yard restaurant after just two years.
Both it and Pho operated from the Grade I listed Melville block. The Club House exited the Brewhouse in 2023 and just three months after Prezzo shut its restaurant in the yard. But in August 2024, the News Cafe opened in Prezzo’s former space in the Mills Bakery building.
When Pho opened in Plymouth, bosses were delighted with the reception and were even considering a second city outlet. Pho created 25 jobs at the Royal William Yard. The eatery had 115 covers, and another 60 outside, making it one of the largest in the Pho stable.
Pho was started in 2005 by Stephen Wall and his wife Juliette with a single 30-cover restaurant in Clerkenwell, London. The business grew and opened in Exeter in August 2018.
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