Different LEGO fans collect different types of LEGO sets. Some stick to titles culled from their favorite franchises. Others build a collection around a very specific theme, like a massive spaceship or a fancy castle. Then, there are those working on building an ever-expanding city block. The new LEGO Creator Expert Downtown Diner is designed for that latter group of folks.
That’s right, you can now add another structure to your growing city block, giving your tabletop city’s minifig residents even more entertainment and recreation options. And, yes, it follows all the signature elements the previous releases were known for, ensuring this will fit right in with the Assembly Square, Palace Cinema, and whatever other modular city building you have in your collection.
The LEGO Creator Expert Downtown Diner is a retro-style, three-story building that houses a 1950s-style diner at the ground level, a boxing gym in the second floor, and a recording studio at the top. Off the bat, you’ll probably notice the Streamline Moderne style of architecture, most notably the curved front window on the diner and the pink-and-teal arch on the right side of the building that looks like an element straight off a 50s-style jukebox. As with other Creator Expert buildings, each floor can be individually detached to allow easy access to every level, allowing you to tinker with the detailed interiors available in each facility.
Exposing the ground floor, for instance, reveals a counter with stools, a table and benches, a jukebox, two soda dispensers, a candy machine and a mini-kitchen with a griddle cooktop, a coffee machine, and an exhaust hood to bring all that smoke outside. The set comes with minifigs of a chef and a waitress (with a matching roller skate accessory) to staff the diner, although you’ll have to provide the customers from your own minifig collection.
At the second floor of the LEGO Creator Expert Downtown Diner sits a boxing ring, a suspended punching bag, weights equipment, a water dispenser, and a wall clock. It comes with one boxer minifig in the set, although you should be able to pair this with both the Boxer minifig from 2011 and the Brawny Boxer from 2012 if you were lucky enough to get those back in the day. The top floor showcases a recording studio setup, complete with soundproofed walls, a vocal booth, a mixing desk, a refreshments cabinet, and some plaques displayed on the walls. The roof over the studio, by the way, comes with a built-in skylight that you can open to give the creative folks in the room a peek at the stars while recording in the wee hours of the morning.
A total of six minifigures are included in the set, along with a good heaping of accessories, most notably a badass pink convertible that you can park right in front of the diner just like they did back in the 1950s. Well, at least, they did in the movies. The set measures 13 x 9 x 9 inches when assembled and contains a total of 2,480 pieces.
Set to go on sale in January, the LEGO Creator Expert Downtown Diner is priced at $169.99.