The Green Grocer

I finally found some time to build the Green Grocer set (10185). This was a big set, and took a long time to build. The amount of small pieces and detail was very impressive. This set added a lot of what was missing from the Cafe Corner, in that there is some interior and “life” to the set. Sadly, this applies to the first level only, as the upper two levels are very sparse in the details, with the exception of a grandfather clock (which seemed maybe a little overbuilt), and a radiator (which was interesting). I also thought the fire escape, while interesting, was very strange in the parts that were chosen to make it. It again seemed like choices were made to be clever, rather than efficient.

Lots of pieces in the set, impressive out of the box, as modeled by my erstwhile assistant.

The grocer section was clearly the highpoint of this set, it’s extremely detailed, and well built. I love the items on the shelves, and the refrigerator. Clearly a lot of time and energy went into designing this portion of the set. I recall reading an interview with designer Jamie Berard where he basically said that the cost became an issue, and was the reason that the rest of the set was a bit sparse. Personally, I would pay a bit more for this kind of quality.

Here’s first floor built.

The upper floors don’t warrant a lot of discussion, apart from the clock and radiator, seen here.

Here is the fire escape, note the use of the harpoon gun for a rail. This struck me as an odd choice.

The completed set, front and back.

The last step was to add this to the Cafe Corner and the Market set. It’s fairly impressive when all connected, and we added the City Horse Trailer set to add to the street feel. I’ve heard that there will be a third “official” set to complete the block (the Market was a fan creation, but in my opinion holds its own nicely) coming out this year. That should take care of my Xmas list. I love these sets, they’re certainly my favorite out of anything available from LEGO these days.

On the whole, I like this set a lot. It has great interior and exterior details, it has some great building techniques, and relatively few problems. Not recommended for younger builders, as it is a bit tricky to put together.

That brings us to the end of the build review for the Green Grocer. Hope you enjoyed it, feel free to drop us a line and let us know what you think of the site, and the review.