Hi everyone. This is actually my first Brickset review. I've been gathering pieces for both Cafe Corner and Market Street for several months now and have finally been able to build both. Most, if not all of the reviews for CC are at least several years old at this point, with newer modulars at better price points containing more modern building techniques available. Since many purchasers of new modulars find the older few to be way out of budget, I will attempt to answer the questions of does it still have its luster, is it worth getting, and what is the best way to go about that.

Box/Instructions

So, I used Bricklink, Pick a Brick, and Bricks and Pieces to fill out the remaining inventory that I did not already have. Back before the holidays I printed out the parts list to this and 10190 Market Street. After going through my loose parts inventory and having about 70 percent of each set, I decided it was worth it to finish them. Needless to say, I don't have a box to reference or comment on.

The instructions are available free in PDF form. I wouldn't recommend printing them unless you hate trees: there are a lot of pages and you'll kill your ink supply. HOWEVER, they are EXTREMELY difficult to make out in terms of both color, and especially when trying to tell where one brick ends and the next begins. It can be very hard to make out, on several walls for example, what the order of the 1x8, 1x4, and 1x3 brick they use. I kind of had to guesstimate and just make sure they interlocked and overlapped. I would absolutely recommend taking advantage of the call-out boxes on each page with that step's pieces.

Parts

Phenomenal selection. Most of the once-rare parts, like the sloped bricks that make the roof, are more common now, thanks to Elves and a few in Pet Shop. I don't know if they are on Bricks and Pieces. Quite a few earth-blue bricks, including pillars that look fantastic, a rare light bley door, very rare light bley 2x2 turntables, a good use of dark bley parrots and frogs as ornamentals, and that front door.....The white skis that make up the front sign are brilliantly executed, but unfortunately can't be swapped for the skis that don't have hinges. Unfortunately, the hingeless ones are the only ones available from Lego anymore. Excellent color blocking and contrast, and it's amazing to see what they did with more basic parts, as opposed to the use of newer pieces like the Nexo Knights shield in the Brick Bank or the brick-bricks that make up half of the second floor of Detective's Office. No olive green a-la Parisian Restaurant; just a great use of earth-tones that existed back in '07. You will need quite a few reddish-brown bricks in various sizes, and many, many headlight bricks in dark red, reddish-brown, and tan. Which is good as they are three very versatile colors for other uses if you get them in bulk.

Minifigures

I did not go through the trouble of getting/assembling minifigures. The shop owner and customer with the plain white torso are around $5 USD, but the third, in the light blue coat, is around $30. Since Cafe Corner is simply going to go in the block of modulars in the midst of the fledgling 8"x12" layout I am working on, I didn't think it was a priority. I may get the shop owner down the road so it's not a totally empty building. If you have enough minifigures you could populate it with whomever; it is a cafe, after all, so there should be lots of patrons. You'll need to make an interior, however.

The build

LONG. Usually modular buildings take me about 3 to 4 hours, tops. This was more than double that. Which is good, since that's what you want and expect from a big, exclusive set.

The build begins with an earth-blue layer for which it was nigh impossible to tell the length of bricks for from the PDFs. The first floor is assembled with the stairs to the second level on the right. The brick with arch no. 2339 can be replaced with a color other than dark blue since you won't see it and the dark blue arches are kind of cost-prohibitive. The build moves to the sidewalk where "CAFE" is spelled out in the sidewalk stones to the left of the door. There are a number of 1x1 plates and tiles for this section, which can be a pain to line up well if you're a perfectionist as 1x1s have a bit of rotational give. The "HOTEL" sign is a good early example of lettering techniques: not in the sense of it being particularly innovative so much as eye-opening to future possibilities. We'll see better execution of the technique in Pet Shop and Al's Barber from Detective Office.

The second floor alternates between the windows, which are each a pair of 2362 panels, and the wall in between windows, which are headlight bricks with tiles on the front. The back of the building is fairly repetitive but not nearly as much as, say, 10224 Town Hall.

The third floor is the roof; if you've built the Pet Shop the technique of one slope being a stud higher than its neighbor will be very familiar. Continues to the bell tower (no bell, though) and then the roof itself. The corner is canted 45* via those light gray turntable plates.

There are spots where you can cut corners when getting pieces that don't need to be absolutely identical to the original parts, but work totally fine and you won't tell the difference. I had mentioned the dark blue arches. The panels that make up the second floor windows have hollow studs in the original and the part 4132 2x4x3 Window for the third floor is manufactured with both solid and hollow studs. For each of these two pieces, just get the cheaper ones, as the originals style molds are expensive and irrelevant. They will both be covered anyway. The price differences will astound you.

Additionally, I used the 73435 door with trans-clear glass in old light grey instead of light bluish gray. The difference in color actually isn't that noticeable; pretend it's weathered with age. The difference in price, however, is a couple dollars for old gray vs. $20 or more for new.

There are also pieces where, unfortunately, only the originals will do, so be prepared to pay. The 2x2 turntables will look garish in old gray and there aren't a lot of those on Bricklink to begin with. The light-bley versions average $20 USD to start. The black door can't be swapped either, and you'll need eleven of the correct type of skis for the front sign. This is where you'll spend the money on this set. I would order those on payday so you don't feel quite as guilty.

Modern modulars definitely make more use of SNOT techniques as well as half-stud-offset techiques, typically used for windows. As stated in other reviews, there is no interior. Not much I can add to that other than get creative. There are some very very cool MODS that have interiors on all three floors added - they are well worth checking out.

The completed model

Very visually-heavy was the first thought that comes to mind. Parisian Restaurant (my all-time favorite set ever) looks downright dainty next to it. Come to think of it, all the newer modular buildings do. It has a heft to it, literally and figuratively, that doesn't seem to exist anymore as more effort goes toward interiors. It is an extremely imposing set that doesn't try to be too much at once - this was my main issue with Detective's Office. The floors are only held together with a single stud, as opposed to newer modulars, where the tiles are broken up by those 1x4 plates with the two studs on the end that provide more clutch. As a result, you need to be a little more careful moving it. It's tall, too. Several inches higher than the Bank. I'm going to have to figure out the best way to order the eleven of them into a big city block.

Overall opinion

An incredible build, and very satisfying experience once the hunt for pieces was finally finished. I just built Palace Cinema a week or so ago (after it sitting in the attic over at my parents' house for over a year) and I don't think the Cinema necessarily offered anything that Cafe Corner didn't. Well, maybe a price tag that is several orders of magnitude less.

The biggest detriment to this set is the cost. The sealed versions are untouchable, and even built ones will set you back $500 to start. If you have enough of the pieces in your inventory to make it worthwhile, however, I would absolutely say to go for it. It may not be my absolute favorite building experience when it comes to modular buildings (that honor goes to the Parisian Restaurant, which has yet to be dethroned) but in terms of completed models, it is absolutely terrific. Pictures don't do it justice.

The year was 2007. I was 13 years old then, and my Lego habits where about to shift BIG time. After buying several Bionicle sets at the start of the year, I soon was proclaimed I wasn't into Bionicle anymore after building those strange Barraki. Lego sets were starting to look basic, a little bland; and a tad boring; and the only thing I was still interested in were the Star Wars sets. In retrospect, this could have led to what Lego fans normally call, "The Dark Ages" However, before I lost faith in Lego; The Cafe Corner arrived on the scene, averting me from entering any sort of "Dark Ages" and renewing my excitement in Lego. This set marked my transition from KFOL to TFOL; and set me down the path to becoming an AFOL...

This is though, kind off a hard set for me to review. It has been well covered in AFOL press and fan sites. The Cafe Corner's building styles have been eclipsed by the Modular Buildings which have followed; which contain more detail and interior decorations. Since the Cafe Corner arrived; Lego has given us a plethora of sets aimed for their teenage and adult fans, all of which have built on the ideas first showcased in The Cafe Corner.

And what were those ideas here in The Cafe Corner? It was that Lego could sell an advanced highly detailed set, which rivaled the detail at even the Legoland park's Minilands. It was the idea that adults and teens would buy something big and expensive; without the Star Wars UCS label. It was the idea, that Lego could retain it's adult and teen fans through more complex sets.

As we all know Cafe Corner was a success in all of these regards. I myself was caught into its design, and as the years have progressed I have bought other large models; the Grand Emporium, the Town Hall, the Palace Cinema, the Haunted House, the Volkswagen Van, the Emerald Night, the Maersk Train, and the Horizon Express. Every single one of these sets, and their kin were what kept me glued to Lego throughout my teen years. Along the way I of course continued to buy Star Wars sets, and other licensed sets; but these big sets became a tradition, sort of a Lego Fan's right of passage. My family has accustomed to me building a large Lego set on Christmas morning as part of the family tradition, and when I returned from living two years in South America; one of the first things I did was build the Palace Cinema.

The Cafe Corner is a set which easily deserves 5 stars. I can't begin to explain just how well this set continues to integrate into my Lego collection, nearly 8 years since I first got it. Furthermore who would have believed in 2007 that all these years later, that the Modular Building series would have become a regular Lego release? This set is just simply put, awesome.

I bought this set several years ago with along with Green Grocer, Town Plan, and Market Street.  My boys and I spent so many fun hours puttting the other three sets together but we never got around to this one (we did build about another 20 sets together).  It's still sitting in the closet all sealed up! Wow, I can't believe how much these are going for now...  I'm almost afraid to look at it!

When I first got out of my dark ages, this set was already discontinued. I was 3 years late, and the only way for me to get this set was either through bricklink or ebay. Of course the price then was really inhibiting for me as I realized how much the prices of LEGO sets went up during my dark ages. Still, I bit the bullet, and paid US$300 for it. Now I'm so thankful to myself that I got it, if I haven't gotten it then, there's no way I can afford it with the prices that it is commanding now. I wondered how can it be so valuable and that people are still getting it. I can only justify that, apart from being a beautifully designed set, it is an icon by itself that this was the one that started it all, it kind of represent a paradigm shift in people's perception that LEGO is just a child's toy. With this set, you no longer see it as a toy, but a masterpiece of an artwork, which you would proudly display and admire. But, this set was more than just the sum of its parts, it featured new, articulated building techniques, giving aspiring AFOLs plentiful lessons how to go beyond with their LEGO. When people came to know I'm into LEGO they were like, what you still play with kids stuff and then I showed them this, the Cafe Corner, there wasn't anyone that didn't go...WOW

So if you can afford it, get it. If you can't afford it, get it anyway because you'll regret not getting later.

Cafe Corner is my favorite Lego set in my heart.
The reason I like this set is because it is deluxe, grand and colorful.

I like CC since 3 years ago, It is my most favorite Lego. The design that is very luxury because ski is laying on doorway but not look like ski.

This is a very good set in Lego. And I will continue be one of Lego fans.

Finally, Cafe Corner is begining of wonderful idea for MOC.