Random set of the day: Sidewalk Café
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 6402 Sidewalk Café, released in 1994. It's one of 29 Town sets produced that year. It contains 47 pieces and 2 minifigs, and its retail price was US$7.25.
It's owned by 1736 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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26 comments on this article
I miss Paradisa...
Same here, I still watch the old TV commercial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1AFq-dZiFw
favorite set still has to be poolside paradise.
This set always seemed so inviting to me as a kid. Too bad I couldn’t get past the pink pieces. Silly how things change, I love pink pieces now.
Great Mo!
Aaaah, 1994, when you could walk down a sidewalk in just a thong and nobody cared...
waitwut? .-.
I’m always shocked at how old I was when these Paradisa sets were released. I was pretty far into my teens, but I have clear memories playing with this set. So small, not much to its structure, but I was able to imagine a load of stories for this set. I really miss small sets like this.
Looking back, the Paradisa line was actually some of the best sets that Lego produced from that time period, in my opinion. I have this set as well as the lighthouse in my city, and there are others, like Poolside Paradise and Island Arcade, that are really neat little sets in and of themselves. I remember being put a little put off by the pink as a kid, but it certainly doesn't bother me now, especially since it is a beachy color. I'm sure part of it is that it's what I grew up with, but early-mid 90s sets really were good stuff.
Well, Paradisa was a great theme, but the new Friends sets have similar things in them, some even better!
honey, where are myyyy paaaaaaaaaants?
Those printed ice cream tiles were gorgeous.
Like so many others here I, too, thought that pink was only for girls and passed on Paradisa sets at the time. Now I made a MOC very similar to this one and still keep a set sealed in mint condition.
Ah...paradisa - where girls in thongs buy ice-cream from guys in thongs... :-)
This is a set my wife brought into our marriage, so to speak - it is still assembled since my daughters like to play with it.
I loved that pink became a new colour for LEGO bricks. Annoyingly my friends were always happy to remind me that Paradisa was for girls. They weren't as obsessed with LEGO as I was, and couldn't see how much Paradisa added to LEGO Town. Paradisa gave us great sets and weren't just another Fire/Police Station, etc. A town needs other buildings too and Paradisa had amazing sets. With my pocket money I secretly bought 6401 Seaside Cabana (a smaller and even better set than this Sidewalk Café), but I so wanted Poolside Paradise. I did however have the earlier 6376 Breezeway Café, which in my opinion was one of the best Town sets of the 90's (or ever).
Totally agree @kolxanthe, I think Paradisa brought so much to Lego Town. I was the peak audience for these sets as a 5 year old girl in the early 1990s, but I’m glad people outside that demographic can appreciate how great these were! This was my first Lego set that was “my very own” not shared with my older brother so has a very special place in my heart!
Nowadays I think Friends does sort of offer a similar thing - much more diverse sets and activities than Lego City, which really improve a Lego town :-)
I love Huwbot today.
I got a couple Paradisa sets back in the days and I used to replace the pink pieces in the buildings with regular colors, they always looked excessively girly for my taste. It was an easy job and they turned into great sets that fits perfectly in the City line of the time.
With their modern replacement, Friends, it's impossible for a kid to do the same, since pink and violet are like half of the pieces, and even if you do it the sets wouldn't fit in a City diorama.
I never had a Paradisa set, though I liked them. As mentioned above, they added new things to a LEGO town.
Around the same time as Paradisa, I made a virtual country, based on LEGO. I drew maps with cities, rail lines, ports and airports. It was a well-connected country ;) Paradisa was a city based in the southern, more warm parts of the country. I think I even made an airline for that part of the country, though not brick-built.
Oh I love paradisa sets, I have two quite smal and one tiny boat and they are so cute
tbh I wish we had more sets with this color theme. The friends one are to intense in color?
(I just love light pinks and whites together ok? the saturated colors from friends are too much for me)
I always liked Paradise. I was a 10 year old boy, when Paradisa came out, and sure, I joked about the over-abundance of pink in this particular seaside suburb, of the greater Lego city ... but I still liked the sets. This one in particular I thought was cute and lovely.
Although I'm not sure about the comfort of serving ice-cream to customers while wearing nothing but a singlet and thong, but you know, we shouldn't judge.
Aww this was one of the sets I LOVED as a kid.
I have ice tray pieces to this day!
Favorite theme of all time!
Looking over the picture again, another memory popped up. Sadly, so many boys—it seems—weren’t able to handle the pink, but the red bikes that populated Paradisa ticked me off! All of the gray, white, and pink and then bright red bikes! (The Paradisa lighthouse similarly had a very non-Paradisa-y red sailing boat.) When I was a teen boy playing with these sets, I wished for pink bikes. I was really angry when bright blue pieces started finding their way into sets and the grass moved from a light pastel green to a brighter pastel green. I knew the end of Paradisa was coming.
@biffuz I totally disagree! Some of the friends sets are far too pink, yes, but not as much or as many as you might think. Half my city is made up of de-pinkified friends sets, and they blend in among the other buildings. The colours overall can sometimes be a bit bright, but the same goes for City and Creator, where the sets aimed at younger children are harder to adapt to be realistic looking.
I loved that Paradisa brought totally new colours, and pastel ones at that, to Legoland Town. Unfortunately I never got any of the sets at the time. I bought some over the last couple of years via ebay though.
Nice little set.
While LEGO still uses various shades of pink/purple in sets, it's not the same as Paradisa's Pink.
The current "pink" color used in 2019 is actually named a few different things so can be confusing:
- Lego name - Light Purple - ID 222
- Bricklink name - Bright Pink - ID 104
- LDraw name - Light_Purple - ID 29
@Yooha
Be prepared to hate him tomorrow.
I love all the pastel colors in Paradisa. That's one thing that bothers me with Friends. The colors are so overwhelming they just seem gaudy to me.