Building Lego modulars (or, as they’re officially known, Creator Expert) is an addictive hobby. I started out with Fire Brigade a little over a year ago, as it was readily available. It was an imposing building and, as a returner to Lego, it had tons of new building techniques that I had never considered as a child, even though it mostly used the same parts as back in the day. Then I got Grand Emporium in the summer, with the intent to change out the interior to make it into an arcade. Then in January I bought the brand new Parisian Restaurant, as these things release once every year. And about a month ago I decided to piece together Green Grocer.

The early modulars are all extremely pricy. Unlike the Fire Brigade, which was produced until very recently and is only now going up in price, the Market Street, the Café Corner and the Green Grocer were made before Lego’s real return to mainstream. I’m apparently not the only adult fan of Lego who has been enticed back in recent years, and these are among the ultimate collectibles, so the prices are going ridiculous. You can expect to pay 400-1000€ for these sets or more. I wanted Green Grocer, but not that much. Heck, I want them all.

Luckily, there’s another option which I recently used to get Imperial Flagship. Since Lego bricks are interchangable, you don’t need the original sets (case in point: I temporarily used a spare seat from my 80’s Lego since I forgot to order it). Pieces normally cost around 0.1€ in retail, and in most cases you can get away with that for brand new loose pieces too. Sellers on Bricklink and other places break down sets and sell bricks individually. It’s also easy to generate a shopping list from everything a set includes, and subtract the pieces you already own. I started out with about 300 pieces available from my spare parts.

When collecting Green Grocer’s parts list, there are a few pieces to look out for.

* Blue arched brick (6005) for the awning is about 1€ per piece but you only need 4. I got used ones for a lower price and to avoid making a separate order from the few sellers who had more.
* Dark gray door frames (30179) are very rare and you need 5, but the other version (60596) is functionally the same for a tenth of the cost. You also need one black and two white, and the latter can be found in Seaside House along with plenty of other window pieces you’ll need.
* There are plenty of dark green basic bricks which can be tricky to find but not extremely expensive.
* The decorations around the shop door (2431pb043) are from old Viking sets and most sellers only have a few. The prices range wildly, so plan your purchases well.
* The sand green bricks are a killer, since you need tons of them. You need 41 1×4:s and 50 1×8:s, which make up the bulk of the walls. You can either replace these with another colour (which sort of takes away from the ”Green” Grocer) or you can bite the bullet. Since the 1×8:s cost more than 10 times as much, I went with 141 of the 1×4:s instead. There are slight problems with this: the 1×8:s normally overlap by four studs which makes a solid wall, but if you use 1×4:s they sometimes just stack on top of one another. This can be fixed by shifting some pieces around, but it ultimately looks pretty good anyway. Either way, finding sellers with these quantities isn’t easy and now that the big sources of this part like Haunted House is out of production, it will probably get more expensive until they make it again. Incidentally, the Haunted House WILL cover most of your sand green needs if you use 1×2:s and 1×6:s to substitute for the 1×8:s, although that too is getting expensive.
* The sand green brick with a groove (4216) is kind of rare but not too expensive, and available from several European sellers.
* The white 2×2 panel (4864b) is rare but you only need two. To not have to make a special order, there are several variations that are functionally the same.
* The white 2×3 train window is very rare and those who have a few of these know how to charge for them. I went with light gray ones for now, although I might replace them down the line. Paying 2€ per piece just stings, but they are rather prominent on the front of the building.
* The minifigs are wildly overpriced as sets since they mostly consist of standard pieces. If you break them down, you probably have most pieces already. I skipped them entirely.
* You want to get the kitten (6251px1), even though it’s a little expensive.

All of this came to 8 separate orders (three major ones) plus the parts from my collection and some donations from Seaside House. The orders were around 350€ in total including shipping from around Europe, but admittedly I could have gotten away with less with a bit more patience. It helps to set a reasonable price limit for more common parts so you don’t overpay.

I built Green Grocer over two evenings, probably around 6-7 hours in total, along with two friends. Especially at the beginning, it takes a lot of time just tracking down individual pieces. The build is enjoyable if rather straight-forward. I had seen a review long ago, but I hadn’t looked at it recently so there were many surprises along the way. It was designed by master builder Jamie Berard, and although it lacks the crazy complicated flourishes of the Parisian Restaurant (which is, after all, six years its junior), there is plenty to see. I loved the hugely complex fire escape, the railings along the roof, the lights on the front, the well stocked shop and the crazy way the wall clock is put together.

The end result is simply lovely. The grocer itself is very quaint and extremely detailed, with an exquisite tiled floor which extends to the side passage, which houses mail boxes, stairs to the apartment and a passage to the back alley. The front of the building is similar to Parisian Restaurant (you can call it an evolution of this) but very pretty, especially the extending section on the right, topped with a turret of sorts. It looks very much like an early 20th century apartment building.

The back isn’t lacking either. Obviously it’s mostly a brick wall, but the fire escape is seriously awesome, using tons of very unexpected pieces. I like how the windows follow the stairs inside. And the top terrace seriously made me want to be five centimeters tall so I could live here. Only, there’s very little furnishings inside. It’s a step up from Café Corner which was entirely empty, but not as ridiculously packed as Fire Brigade’s second floor.

Another benefit of this is how you can populate it, much like Parisian Restaurant. Both Fire Brigade and Grand Emporium mostly have nice exteriors but nowhere to put figures. This is also why I didn’t spend money on the original figures, because there’s no shortage of potential inhabitants.

If you want to get Green Grocer, you’d better hurry. The complete set is steadily rising and Lego doesn’t (so far) reissue modulars since the original point was to use up pieces that won’t be produced anymore. If you can live without instructions, box and with some substitutions you can save around 200€. Either way this is a fantastic build that I’m happy to have, even though it cost me more than I really wanted.