Review: 31050 Corner Deli
Posted by MeganL,
In the latest of multi-continental reviews, Huw and I are going to take a look at 31050 Corner Deli, one of the most recent Creator 3-in-1 offerings.
I really enjoy the 3-in-1 sets because of the variety they offer; and seeing that this is a building made it a must-have for me.
Primary build
There are two minifigs in this set. In the first build, we have a little girl and a deli worker, because of the name tag on his shirt. The little girl comes with a sandwich - one that should take her most of the day to eat. Green floral is used for lettuce, but I'm not sure what the pink 1x1 round is supposed to indicate, some sort of meat perhaps.
The first floor is a food prep area as well as a cashier area. There are a few details but not too many; enough that it doesn't feel crowded when the structure is closed. There's also a lot of play area afforded when the structure is hinged open.
Second floor has a little sitting area - I think calling it an apartment (as the website does) is a little optimistic - with a comfortable chair and a small table.
I like the use of the rust colored brick for the walls for the first floor; plus the pale blue is an interesting choice for the second floor. It provides a nice contrast without seeming too jarring.
The roof has an interesting use of the grid piece, by tilting it on its side in order to put the skylight in place. There is really good detailing on the top level with the eaves and the skylight. The antennae at the top is a nice touch, complete with a very colourful (and large, considering the scale) bird perched on top.
A nice airy outdoor eating area is the last part of the build as well as the giant sandwich that serves as the marquee. The way the sandwich is built is quite clever and reminiscent of the techniques used in the modular buildings. The eating area is placed such that it fills a corner in between the hinged portion of the sets, which gives the set its name. It's a simple feature but not one I remember seeing in previous sets of this size.
The finished model is hinged so you can open up the set and play with the food prep and cashier sides separately (and chair and table on the top floor). The hinging mechanism is used for all three of the builds.
Flower shop build
Our two minifigs have been switched; this time it's a woman working in the shop and a little boy - perhaps a shop helper? The hat and hair have been switched on the minifigs
I rather like how the rust and blue colored bricks are used throughout the walls in this build. The lattice pieces are used in the same way as the main build for the skylights.
While the flower shop is nice it's a little devoid of detail. There's enough bricks left over that some additional features could be added, or perhaps part of a second floor. This is the only version that includes a slightly larger main floor space at the cost of a second level.
Townhouse build
The final build is a tiny townhouse. One wall is hinged to gain access to the first floor seating area and the second floor bedroom. The minifigs this time are a man and a little girl.
This is a very small townhouse - like with the flower shop, with all the spare parts left it feels like much more could be done with this. I do like the flowers on the window sills and the traffic light that's included. Though I'm a little puzzled with the traffic light as I'm not sure how the traffic light is consistent with anything in the rest of the build.
Overall thoughts
The piece count is excellent (467 pieces, $39.99 US, £27.99, 34.99€) and provides lots of pieces in very interesting colours for an interesting building. The primary build feels like a mini modular, I felt especially with the roof and top level. It felt so much like a modular I was disappointed at the lack of detail, and I had to remind myself this was a much smaller set. The pieces are used well for the second and third builds, though I do think more of them could have been used to provide a more detailed build in each case.
I think this set is easily scalable, and I have seen several MOCs of larger delis build from two or three of these sets. I'm tempted to do this myself!
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25 comments on this article
Great review. This is a really nice-looking set on an impressive box, I'm excited to open the box we have at home now that I've seen everything in good detail. I really hope Lego continues with its smaller-scale modular subtheme, this set is definitely great.
The only downside I see to this set is that the bird isn't one solid animal piece, instead it's (still) composed of smaller pieces--I hope eventually we see more diversity in single-piece animals in the future, because IMO the birds look outdated being built like that now.
I love this set. My brother and I bought two and built one backwards, so we can use them in different places around our town. It was smaller than I expected, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was only $40. I can't imagine building either of the alternative builds. They're just too small and leave too many pieces unused.
The Modulars are fantastic and we'll get each new one that comes out, but not only are they very expensive, they take up an entire baseplate. You can only fit so many on a table. These types of sets are much easier to fit into an existing city layout.
The bird is typical of a Creator set. There's always an animal built from multiple pieces. I don't see this changing anytime soon.
This set looks like a lot of fun. May have to check it out.
Such a cute set! My work sells this :D
I love the Creator buildings in the £20-40 range because they are a great source of inspiration as well as parts, but if they suffer from any flaw then surely it is the ludicrously small internal area. 31035 "Beach Hut" and 31009 "Small Cottage" are just barely acceptable, but with many others like 31050 "Corner Deli" and 31038 "Changing Seasons", I have no choice but to add another hundred bricks to modify them into decent play sets.
And one-piece birds, kakyoin01? No! I love turning tooth-plates and clip-plates into flocks of wingèd delights.
Lovely set, and a good source of dark orange parts too.
Agree to disagree, then. :) Understandably, these are Creator sets so they should contain as many elements built from common pieces as possible. But I think those piecewise birds look better in large-scale sets and buildable animal sets like Park Animals.
Without one-piece animals, there have been no easy solutions for to-scale animals in many City and Creator sets. I posit that that's why the buildable miniature animals have been generally restricted to birds that sit on/towards the outside of the sets, away from minifigs and other components that make their size look odd.
The pink stuff is ham.....I think.
Tempted to get may two of these sets now. Might have a go at combining them in to one larger model :D
Beware the mystery meat!
This is a neat little set. I will be getting a few more of them.
Can you post a link to where we can see the MOCs you mentioned made from multiples of this set?!
Cool looking set and figs, and such a contrast to lego trying to fleece us withaverage looking models for £200+
I wonder if those mnifigs will end up being categorised as four separate figures because they're switched in the alternative build?
@alexs1979: Sorry, I didn't keep track of links - I've just seen some ideas posted on various social media sites, both of MOCs using multiples of this set, as well as MOCs using this set as a base and supplementing from others.
I gave in to temptation and bought two of this set this evening. Will build the variations and then try out making a custom model combining the sets.
I love this set a lot. It finally got me off my duff to do a real attempt at something modular. My "upgrade" is still tiny, but I'm very proud of it.
And the set itself is super-solid as well.
Great review, I also like the main build for these mini modulars (bike shop + cafe, toy shop and now deli), even if the "alternates " are a bit lacking. Guess it is a trade off for normal (non afol) sales, and the reason for last two being single rather than dual.
@alexs1979 - Google (or Instagram search) for " 31050 moc " to get lost down the rabbit hole. Deli also combines well with Detective Office expansions.
You can also put the townhouse in the corner spot of the A-Model, if you buy two sets. This isn't actually advertised anywhere, but you can do that.
This set is good but not that interesting, I think... I don't much care for tiny little buildings, and this doesn't have any really interesting building bits like you would find in a modular, or even the distinctive shaping of that toy store from last year.
SANDWICH TIME!!!!
For the curious.
https://m.flickr.com//photos/20955164 @N06/sets/72157667044125775/with/25769660964/
Nice review.
Ill say this, IMO this set is much better when it can be found at 20-25% off (hopefully someone will drop it to 30-35% off eventually).
Really liked this set, we did buy two and combined them to make a lil bigger deli.
Actually, this is the only set we have bought and built in the last few month.
Thank you for this review. I have considered buying this set and some of the other Creator 3-in-1 sets. I have looked at purchasing several copies of this set to build a street-scape, and compared prices with some of the larger Modular buildings.
When viewed against price per part, this set is marginally more expensive than 10246 Detective's Office; however, there are often discounts on smaller sets that are not available on the larger exclusive sets.
The main build is really nice but the alternates are really rather disappointing compared to other recent Creator buildings, most notably the Seasons one where all three builds were equally terrific. Still worth a purchase if you like Creator type of things, but they could and should've done so much better with the alternate builds.
Got 3 sitting at home waiting to moc... and from that flickr link just realised I have 2 or 3 Creative Ambushes with Kabob Bob stashed away too!