2nd Street Café Express

The last few times I’ve had to stay in Reno overnight before an early morning flight, I’ve ended up at the GSR. This little sandwich/​pastry shop is located right next to the lifts so it’s very convenient it you want a cup of coffee. Notice I didn’t say «quick» cup of coffee. That’s because the lines here are so so long. I don’t know if it’s the tourists who’ve lost a few dollars and brain cells at the slots or the workers who have just given up on life, but perhaps my timing is just off.

I got a hot dog and it was that very pale beige, multi meat, flavorless variety instead of all beef.

We had a really bad experience here. Indifferent service and sub quality food.
Stopped in to get a quick bite on Monday ⁴⁄₂₅ about 1:30 in the afternoon after driving over three hours to get to the GSR in Reno. We hadn’t had a chance to eat much that morning, a granola bar was it, and we were planning a nice meal out later so we weren’t looking for anything too big or heavy. Just something to hold us over. Hubby chose a hot dog and I decided on one of their «made to order» salads. They were listed on a «lunch and dinner special» board «. The highlight of the salad I picked was roasted butternut squash, which I love and why I picked it. My husband got his hot dog and I was told my salad would take a few min. I told him to go ahead and eat because I didn’t want his food to get cold but truthfully, by the time he opened all those little packets to put the condiments on his hotdog, it was cold anyway. Not only that, the hotdog was OK but the bun was so dry and stale it all broke apart as he was trying to eat it. Overall a really lousy hotdog and set up. You’d think that they could put a few squirt bottles of mustard, ketchup, relish, etc. on the table to make it quicker, easier and more efficient for people eating there.
In the meantime, I was still waiting for my salad. About five minutes later the completely indifferent girl who had initially taken our order hollered over-​the-​counter to me that they didn’t have any more butternut squash for the salad. She said they could put some raisins or almonds on it instead. Raisins or almonds? Not quite the same thing. Plus it was only 1:30 in the afternoon. This was supposed to be a lunch and dinner item. Why were they already out of the main ingredient? Since they had run out of the main ingredient why was that salad still on the menu board? Why offer something you don’t have?
The worst part of the whole experience though was the completely indifferent and unfriendly attitude of the counter girl. Even when we first approached, there was never a friendly smile, a word of greeting, or anything that made it seem like she was even remotely happy to be there or wanted to help us. With her face point down towards the cash register all we got was a monotone «what can I get you?». She didn’t even have the courtesy to look at us when she asked.
I canceled my order and ask for my money back because it just wasn’t worth the hassle. But had she been friendlier and even a little caring in any way I would’ve probably just picked something else. So I wound up getting nothing and being very thankful that I had one more granola bar at the bottom of my purse.
The pastries and cookies in the case at this snack bar looked nice, but while I was waiting I overheard a lady, sitting at one of the 2 little tables in the place, say how stale tasting her pastry was. Rather than bother to go bring it back since the line was getting long she just threw it in the garbage.
What a waste of time, space and food.
I hope this isn’t an indication of what the other restaurants at this resort are like.

Their cakes and pastries are great. Skip the Starbucks next door and get a real pastry and a good cup of coffee.

This place has so many desserts and breakfast pastries on display! They also have salads, Starbucks, parfaits, juices, and of course, water.
The employees are two young men who gave very good service (:
All the foods are affordable so I think I’ll just come here for breakfast while staying in the hotel.

The pizza tastes like burned oil!!! The bread is all burned black. They don’t clean their oven. I’m too tired to return this thing. Total waste of money and I’m still hungry!

Great little place to pick up something sweet and snacks for the road or your hotel room. They have a great selection of doughnuts, cakes and drinks. The chocolate crescent was very tasty. They did not skimp on the chocolate and the crescent was cooked to perfection, light and flaky.

It’s a grab and go but have some hot sandwiches. Be prepared to wait for these. A long time while employees talk with each other and ignore their jobs. Customer service was extremely rude. Would have taken my tip back from the tip cup if I could have!

This place is more for convenience, quick bite to grab and eat, right next door to Starbucks! They have pre made sandwiches, salads, hot pizza which smelled really great btw, desserts, gelato, and tons of drinks! We came in for the cakes, omg, Carrot cake was BOMB yummy, best part was the frosting! We also got cupcakes to bring home, and a slice of cheesecake. Everything was packaged nicely in clear containers and arrived safely after a 3 hour drive. You can actually buy a whole cake for $ 25 – 28 or slices for $ 3.50, cupcakes were about $ 2.75. There are so many places to eat inside this casino, and I saw a lot of foods that looked healthy at 2^nd St Express, especially the salads. I can’t help it, but this section of the casino reminds me of an airport, it just feels so familiar to me like when I am traveling. There was a long line to get to the register, but it was well worth the wait and the best thing was we used all our Player’s card points and got 5 desserts FREE :) The people working were friendly and we had no issues using our cards. If you are staying at the hotel, this would be a good place to stop by if you are not interested in any of the restaurants and can easily take back to your room! At least the Grand Sierra Resort has A LOT of food choices/​restaurants and you can pick what you want to eat ;)

Came in to use my comps and decided on gelatos. We couldn’t complain. The chocolate was very rich and had deep chocolate flavor, the mint chip was also great but the butter pecan had soft pecan pieces (don’t get this).

I visited twice w my son and after we received our order he whispers to me «mom everyone in here is so nice» that’s saying something.

Can’t expect much from this deli; you’re paying for convenience. We paid 8.56 including tax for a hot chicken pesto sandwich, and over 3.00 for oatmeal.
Sandwich was on the dry side. Very plain. I was too hungry to take a picture before I started eating them.
Service was decent… and for that, they get one extra star.

Oops, another place I forgot to review during my time living in Reno. Better late than never!
I had several stops here during my gambling sessions and stays at the GSR. Never really encountered any issues, but my 2 star rating is pretty much based on the fact that it’s a GSR property, not to mention that it looked pretty darn expensive if one was actually paying money for it.
I never paid a dime for anything in here. It was always the place to stop and get a Diet Coke or a giant cookie for the walk back downtown with freshly accumulated comp points that came off of their free play to begin with, so it was pretty much a perk vs. being an actual dining experience. The hot dogs and pizza weren’t bad. There were a few visits where the lines were out of control, in addition to there being one lone counter attendant, who was cooking, cleaning, and operating the cash register all at once.
It might be worth a visit to dump off some of your comp points/​dollars, but I wouldn’t go out of my way.
TIP: I am a Legend member of the GSR players club, and once I reached that level, I started noticing that sliding your card at the kiosk would land you some awesome deals here — things like their overpriced hot dogs being knocked down to $ 1 apiece with no limit on certain days of the week, and/​or being given the opportunity to snag a whole large pepperoni or cheese pizza for $ 6, where the regular price on a single slice was close to $ 4. It seemed to be one of those unadvertised things that I’m pretty sure was an added perk of being at this tier level, but it had its advantages. Also, one of the employees let me in on a little secret: Go late in the day, like after 10 PM, and you’ll be almost guaranteed a hefty discount on the baked goods and pastries that are on their way out the door. I was able to get mounds of the giant M&M cookies for virtually nothing once I caught on!

Supposed to be GSR’s «inexpensive» grab-​and-​go option … 3.50 for a cup of yogurt and 7 bucks for some plain premade sandwich that’s been sat there for lord knows how long gives you an idea of how inflated GSR prices are gonna be right off the jump.
I ended up getting a cheaply made, half-​stale scone for 2.75 and got to stand in a line of 1 person for 5 minutes because some generic whitebread kid was regaling the three (3) counter girls with his boring adventure tales of shredding Tahoe or whatever. This is what women go all moon-​eyed for now? Standards are slipping man. I wish it was that lax when I was coming up.
Seriously better off grabbing quickie food at Walmart across the street than here.

Broke? — Drunk? — Need Muchies?
OK the deli is the place … load you fanny pack … hit the room … shovel in the chow!
It is what it is, but it is there and ready for you when you want it … Hey! A full pizza for 12 bucks at a first class hotel-​resort? That can be better than a KENO card winner!
We had soup of the day, apple walnut salad, cookies, portobello & turkey sandwiches, as if you give a flame!

It was quick and essentially ready to go. I ordered the French dip. Not really exciting but what could you expect? Just bread, cheese, and meat. It tasted alright.

Starving and drunk? Lost all your money?
Come here and buy an entire pizza for only $ 12! It’s pretty damn good too.

The hotel gave us $ 20 credit – clam chowder is delicious, the supreme pizza is amazing! The crust is crispy and not oily at all, and the ingredients are super fresh! Their pesto chicken sandwich was also delicious. Took a little longer to get everything together, but the staff brought it out to us to the table we were sitting at. Glad we came here for lunch!

Checked into the hotel at 9pm. Got hungry around 11pm. There was nothing really open so we decided to check out this little café. It’s conveniently located near Starbucks and the elevators to the guest rooms.
We decided to order a Supreme Pizza, it wasn’t bad for $ 11.00. You get 6 big slices in a whole pizza instead of ordering one slice for $ 3.00. Supreme Pizza was worth it… because c’mon there’s more on the pizza than just tomatoe sauce, cheese, or pepperoni. Supreme is filled with the three previously mentioned, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and sausage!
Not bad for a late night meal if you ask me! We ate about two slices and had an extra slice for breakfast the next morning. It’s even better when you have an upgraded suite because you can slip the box right into your refrigerator and use your microwave to heat it up the next day! :)
Win-​win situation! Order pizza!

A younger guy who worked there at night was very nice and helpful even though he was overwhelmingly swamped with orders. (The poor guy was the only one working there at that time for some reason…)
Their pistachio gelato was surprisingly delicious. The strawberry cheesecake gelato was not bad, but not great either. The mandarin cheesecake was mediocre (It tasted like one from a regular grocery store.)
Despite of the quality and variety of food available at this joint, it does seem to get busier later in the evening as you don’t have many other options for food/​snacks. But for the pistachio gelato, I’d tend to stay away from this place.

For those of you interested in how NOT to make a breakfast burrito… pay close attention and take notes. Get on a plane, go to Reno, check in at the Grand Sierra Resort, drink too much at the escalator bar, get a hangover and stumble into the 2^nd St Express and order their «Super» breakfast burrito!
So I’m genuinely excited that there’s a breakfast burro here at the hotel… yup…I’m simple like that! I order it up and the lady behind the counter asks if I want «everything» in it… I usually just say «yup»…but she had this utterly confused look on her face so I kindly ask «what’s everything?» I am not kidding this look of terror comes over her face like I just told her I slaughtered her kittens with a hacksaw… and she nervously mumbles…“eggs, lettuce, pickles, sour cream…” WTF?! Where in God’s name am I?! I try and make it easy for her and just say bacon, eggs, potatoes, cheese and salsa please.
This mini $ 4 monstrosity in a cold tortilla had overabundant undercooked scrambled eggs, NOT a single potato or hash brown, a lump of cheddar hidden in the corner, too much cilantro AND NO BACON! (they accidentally put sausage in there) A sin!

I was so hungry I ate the first half without breathing or thinking and then realized how bad it sucked. I found some hot sauce packets and drenched the other half in it… Lindy’s Jalapeño Picante Salsa! this stuff is tasty! I think I took another bite or two of the burrito then tossed it in the garbage where it rightfully belonged. Thank God there was another packet of hot sauce in there… I sucked on that thing like Al Bundy eating ketchup packets during a recession! Extra star for Lindy’s Jalapeño Picante Salsa!

Thank you Lindy! You saved the day!