pineapple wrote:

Sweet, I'll check my stash out. Do you remember this set? I loved my pod racer.

That was around the time I stopped collecting. Some of the Star Wars sets were cool, but the reason I stopped was they were putting out more generic uncreative sets in other areas. Pirates and Wild West were discontinued, and Space sucked, seriously from about 1989-1996...Space was incredible, they haven't been good for a long time. Also, Castle was branching out and doing other things I wasn't interested in (Ninjas), and plus...I was 14. The magazines put age limits on the Lego sets, so I felt pretty lame getting them.

I actually bought 2 of the sets that I mentioned early on in this thread. These are the first 2 Lego sets I've bought in over 11 years. I recieved them yesterday; the hotel and the grocery store.

Let me tell you it takes a LONG time to put them together. I started at 2 pm yesterday and didn't finish the set till around 12:30 am. Outside of a 15 minute break, I worked the entire way through...it's a lot of work. The set itself is awesome, it's slightly smaller than I thought it would be, but highly detailed. Once I get the second set together, I might take a picture and post it here.

Also, is there anyone here from the UK? There's an exclusive set that is only sold in the UK and I was thinking about working out a deal with someone.

Alright Pineapple...I got your damn pics...haha

Anyways, while I'm at it, I'm going to just post a complete review. The two sets I picked up were;

10182: Cafe Corner

10185: Green Grocer

Both sets altogether costed me around $250 and were delivered in around 3 days. Each set took 8-10 hours to complete, with minimal breaks.


Here's both sets together. As you can tell possibly, this is modeled after the classic pre-World War 2 era, everything has a 1930's feel to it. The cool aspect about these sets, is that you can connect them, but that's also a complaint of mine. They only connect at the very bottom and have a hard time staying connected, when you do try to connect them, you run the risk of messing up the sets since you are forced to apply pressure. I would recommend that you use some extra legos to possibly bridge the top. While the Green Grocer looks bigger, it's not nearly as detailed on it's sides as the Cafe Corner is. You might not be able to tell, but the brick layout is good, there's tons of detai which makes it look like an actual city.


Here's the other side of the Cafe Corner. I especially like the "Hotel" sign which would give the impression of a neon sign if you flashed a flashlight on it, I even like the misshaped letters for some reason. You can't tell from the picture very well, but near the left door, the plaza spells out "Cafe" on the ground. As for door with the white archway, I was very skeptic that I was going to get the arch to look the way it did in the pictures since it comes with a plastic bender and the damn thing was very stiff, I thought I was going to get a fold mark, but luckily it turned out alright.


Here's the back of the buildings, and this is where you start seeing why Cafe Corner isn't as cool as Green Grocer. I'll give them both props since the lego sets I grew up with never even put backs on the buildings. The lack of detail is fine and all, since you don't really look at the backs too much, but Green Grocer went out of it's way with the fire escape, which is very detailed. Also if you see the green shrubs on the Grocer, the pieces holding them in place, I mistook for something else, so when it came time to use them, I thought I was missing two pieces. Angerly, I went through my old legos and came across the 2 that I needed, but ended up ruining a set in the process. However, later I realized that I fucked up and had to go back and tear down about an hour's worth of work. You can't tell very well, but there is a balcony on the Grocer which has a couple of chairs and a grill.


I built the Grocer first, so I was amazed at the detail that went into it. When I built the Cafe, I was amazed by the lack of detail that went into the building. That is ridiculous. All you see are tiles and a garbage. And guess what? I added those on my own. The set comes with extra tiles and the garbage can goes outside, but since the entire sidewalk is tiled, then the can just slides all over the place so I put it inside. The tiles I added help make it look better from eye level and I'll probably go back and put some more in there before it's all said and done. This was my biggest gripe about the set.


See that? That's the inside of Green Grocer. MUCH better! The entire floor is tiled and there's detail everywhere you look. There's a cash register and shelves that have product on them, as well as crates that hold produce items. There's even a mouse hole that leads to outside where a bastard rat is eating some stolen cheese. Also, not shown there are some mail boxes and a doorway that leads to the housing level.


Here's the second level of Grocer. It's not nearly as details, but it's still fine the way it is. You can always just assume that no one lives here, but it has a fireplace as well as some nice detail to the stairs. I'm also not going to show any pictures of inside Cafe, since they're basically the same without the detail.


Here's the third level, again not as much detail. But I love the grandfather clock. There's also what appears to be a rug on the floor. If I feel like it, I might add a couch and a bed, but it's not really needed. While the lack of detail inside does kinda suck, you most likely won't have these sets open to begin with.


See kids, this is why you wear a fucking helmet.


"One meelion American dollars or zee women geets eet!!"


Overall, I give both of these sets a 10. Technically, I'd give the Cafe a 9.5 and the Grocer a 10...but they're both really cool to look at. The only complaint I would have is lack of detail on the inside, but that's something you could easily fix, and besides you probably won't have these sets open to play with anyways, they're more for the adult collectors. I definately recommend picking them up if you get the chance. Hopefully this review wasn't in vain.




P.S. I'd like to buy/review this set, but it's a U.K. exclusive. If you live in the U.K. and are willing to help someone from across the drink, let me know, thanks!~

It was $250 for both of them, and I also got free shipping. The only reason why I bought both at once was because the Cafe has been out for a couple of years and there's usually a 3 year thing with Lego before they discontinue an item and I didn't want to take a chance. The cafe is slightly cheaper...I think it was only around $120, but if you're going to choose one or the other because of details, you should definately go with Green Grocer since it's just marvelous to look at all throughout. I should also mention that the Baron in the last picture is not included.

Just out of curiousity Panda, are you located in the UK?

Pandajuice wrote:

I am indeed Dodds, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with buying an expensive Lego set for a stranger. Normally, I'd say, "well, if he never sends the money, I'll just keep it myself", but I'll be moving back to the US within a year and wouldn't be able to take it with me, so don't want to get stuck with it.

Nah dude, I totally understand. Hypothedically, the way I would figure we could work it, would be the trust system. Since this seems to be a pretty legit place, I figure we could keep it within the boundaries of maybe a third party that could moniter it. I have Paypal, and could just send a transaction as soon as possible, so no worries about me trying to screw you over, since you'd be getting the money first. When I bought my sets, I recieved them within 3 days, I don't know how the UK would work, especially since the mail company is on strike (bastards), but you could let me know and I think they do send you a confirmation number, also they shipped for free for me. As soon as the set it recieved, you could let me know and send it out my way. I have absolutely no problems paying shipping from there to here, as well as anything extra for your troubles.

I know the risks of things that go on online, so I can understand someone's hesistance with such a thing, especially when I haven't been here that long. Anyways, just thought I'd throw that out there/

That's very strange since it's supposed to be a UK exclusive. I might call or email them and find out more information. I've been looking and it MIGHT be discontinued, which is strange since it came out in 2007, meaning it would usually end at the end of this year before they discontinued it. Thanks for checking anyways Pandajuice.

EDIT: There's a website called Brickset.com and it says it was available up until June of this year....GODDAMMIT!!!!!!!

Also here's a pretty cool Cafe custom I found on Ebay, I'm going to use the photos to possibly give me an idea of what I'll probably do for my Cafe.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Custom-LEGO-Cafe-Corner-Market-Street-Winter-Toy-Shop_W0QQitemZ140361636709QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item20ae349b65

Pandajuice wrote:

Man, I really hate when companies discontinue shit. You might be able to find the set on the British Ebay or something like that if you're lucky. That auction is really cool, but isn't half the fun of Lego to assemble it yourself?

Yeah, I checked on Ebay and a lot of people are wanting $200 plus, which is absolutely ridiculous.

And yes, I wouldn't ever buy an assembled set. I enjoy the thrill of putting them together as well as the challenge. I was absolutely amazed when I put these together that I didn't accidently miss a part or two at the end. And I've already designed a detailed version of inside the Cafe, but pricing says it's going to cost $44.00

Also, I might be doing a couple more reviews if people are interested. The sets I have already on display are the Skulls Eye Schooner and Fort Legoredo. I don't know if anyone would even care to see those, since they're fairly common, but they're two of my favorite sets.

I found a seller on Ebay who lives in the states who has the Market set I was looking for. It's going to cost a pretty penny, but I should have it within a couple weeks, so I'll try to take some pics. Hopefully, I don't get screwed over.

Well, I've had trouble with Paypal in the past. I've only used it once on Ebay and the guy was a power seller, but never sent me my shit. I reported him and nothing happened. I kept getting the same responses from Ebay, and they never got my money back for me. Never recieved the items, so I'm a little worried, especially since I just added funds to my Paypal and it takes several days to process.

It's alright, it was only around $50. It could've been much worse. I'll try to possibly upload a few pictures of my older sets to sorta hold things over until I get this set.

My next buy: The Fire Station