Second East - (2nd East) — Restaurant in Cedar City

Nothing is made to order... it is assembled to order. I ordered The Olympian, The Mama Mia, and South of the Border.

There were 3 employees behind the counter when i arrived. When I was ready to order, there were only 2 employees behind the counter and neither of them acknowledged me. The third employee reappeared and she really struggled with putting the right amount of pasta in the dishes. Pasta went in, pasta came out. Must have happened 3 times on the same dish.

As they are assembling the dishes, they pull the steak out for The Olympian, and I could instantly see it was cooked to the point of being shoe leather. That was confirmed when they started slicing it. The woman who was cutting the steak seemed to have 0 experience on how to slice a steak. The woman (which I am guessing was a manager), who was standing behind her, gave very poor visual verbal instructions.

When my husband and I dig into our food (he picked The Olympian and I opened South of the Boarder) it was sad to hear him say the meatballs were dry, and neither the steak or the meatballs had and seasoning/flavor as well. We were also both disappointed that there was not enough sauce for all the noodles. The sauce on South of the Boarder was maybe good, but it got lost. There wasn't enough to taste past the first few bites.

The breadsticks that were packed with our food were dry, flavorless and reminded me of pre-frozen bread. I took The Mama Mia with me to work and sadly, the chicken seemed to be in the same boat as the steak. Flavorless. The chicken reminded me of the frozen grilled chicken you buy in the frozen section at the grocery store. The only meat that had flavor was the sausage, but that's because it is pre-made.

One of my coworkers asked where my food was from, when I told him, he said he had a really bad experience as well. Said when he went and wanted breadsticks, he was told he had to buy the salad bar to be able to have breadsticks. Which he didn't want to do. He was rather upset when I told him that I didn't ask for any and they came with my food.

I don't think we will be returning. This was a tough review to write because I kept trying to think back and find something good to say. It is my opinion that the meat is served in small enough portions, it can be cooked to order. I truly would not mind waiting for freshly cooked steak. But I feel even if it was fresh cooked, it would still lack flavor and doesn't fix the...

2nd review 8/11/25

They just aren't sanitary, period. We went a few months ago and a guy dishing out pasta was pouring sweat. I watched him like a hawk to make sure it didn't get in my food. It was nauseating. Then today we went inside (can't go through the drive thru because we're weary about the people handling the food. Sure enough, they had a sick girl cashiering (obvious cold and coughing). She was also handling the food containers with bare hands. After we ordered we got our salad bar food and I didn't see the sick cashiering girl by the register. I had a bad feeling so I walk over there and she is making and handling all the food with her bare hands and long pink fingernails while coughing all over the place. I confronted staff and said I didn't want her making our food, that I don't want to get sick!!! I asked for a healthy person to make it again. Why in the world do they have sick people handling everyone's food??? I am absolutely disgusted by the lack of sanitation and how they don't care about customers' exposure to sick staff. We won't be back, this was the last straw. Now just praying we aren't sick in a few days! Also- they obviously haven't improved anything after complaints about the upcharge, amount, and quality of the waffle fries. An additional $2.50 for 5-6 soggy fries still going strong.

Initial review:

Couldn't wait to try this place on our side of town. Went through the drive-thru. Wanted a hot coffee but they told me their coffee machine was shut down for the night. That was disappointing. Pasta is a good deal if you buy the double portion. Breadsticks were good and my kids enjoyed the soft serve. The guy at the window taking payment clearly had a bad cold so now I'm freaking out, hoping I don't get sick from all the stuff he touched and...

The people leave a lot to be desired in making customers feel welcomed. The staff seemed more interested in their personal conversations than talking to customers about the menu. The food was bland and almost flavorless but the flavors present weren't exactly pleasant. I had the Olympian, the steak was over cooked and, while I could see seasoning on it, tasted like a plain piece of beef. The meatballs had the taste and texture of the frozen Swedish meatballs you get from the store. The andouille sausage had the most flavor, but unfortunately tasted like if you made a slim Jim into a fat James, not very good at all. The salad bar is poorly constructed, most of the food is slopped into other containers so it's hard to scoop out what you actually want. The soup sounded good but looked questionable so I wasn't willing to take the risk. The best part of the whole meal were the bread sticks which is kind of sad. We checked around several tables before settling into one that at least didn't have food still on it. We ate around 3:30pm, far removed from any typical lunch or dinner rush, and with as dead as it was you'd think the employees would have taken some time to clean off the tables, but again it seems like their personal conversation took precedent over work. It's a damn shame because cedar city could use more options than the fifty taco shops we've got, this is a great idea but unfortunately an incredibly...