For years, Legoland had a problem facing its citizens: where could one little minifigure get a bite to eat? Oh sure, there was little to no crime due to the plethora of police stations, and fires were non-existent thanks to all the fire stations, but was it a crime to want a bit of pizza? Lego in the 1980s had seemingly forgotten that cities aren't just police stations, fire houses and race tracks, but they also have things like offices, supermarkets and restaurants. Enter 6350-1 Pizza To Go, an answer to this problem providing a cute Italian style pizzeria for your citizens to order in and order out of.

I've mentioned in my Breezeway Cafe review that I adore simple, down-to-earth premises in Lego as I think they get kids to connect with different types of stories outside of cops and robbers, disaster and calamity.

I thought reviewing this set would be difficult, given it is a timeless Lego set. It's been re-released, paid homage to, and it's endured as a classic piece of Lego set design. But this has been the easiest review to write, simply because it's such an easy set to love.

Building Experience

This was so much fun to build, simply because it was short, to the point, and made great use of the parts on offer. Everything came together quickly in a simple bottom to top build.

First, we build the little pizza delivery van. It's something close to an auto-rickshaw, with no side doors, limited seating and a squat front. Inside the back is room for two pizzas, fresh from the pizzeria. The pizza van is adored with stickers on the side

Then we have the shop itself and it's a really lovely shop. It's mainly white all over, with red roof, so it gives it a distinctly Mediterranean feeling of tiled roofs and whitewashed stucco walls although you could imagine this somewhere in California or Miami in the 1980s. It sits on a 8x16 grey baseplate and it's the perfect size for this set - you've got enough room for the pizzeria to sit without looking squashed, but enough room to have adventures out the front.

For the building itself, you've got some nice features. You've got a faucet/tap, a serving counter facing the customers, you've even got a tiny little third self with a cup on it. There's a clip to hold a pizza paddle and there's a black oven door on the back. There's a little side door to get access to the garbage can/rubbish bin and to leave the pizzeria. The pizzeria has a little tower that visually depicts a kind of chimney for the smoke from the pizza oven to leave, with an arched Spanish/Italian style window at the top.

Three minifigures are included with Pizza To Go - a pizza chef with a chef's hat (apparently called a toque), a pizza delivery guy and a woman who could be eating pizza at the shop, stopping by for a chat or maybe she works here? It's up to you.

Overall, the build is a joy. It's simple, doesn't get bogged down in overly complex building and the finished product leaves room for the imagination.

Parts

The great thing about Pizza To Go is that aside from maybe two or three pieces, you can make this out of common and easily replaceable parts. In fact, that's what I did - I made Pizza To Go out of parts bought from Bricklink and it looks fantastic.

You've got lots of white bricks in various sizes, red coloured slope pieces, an umbrella piece, five pizza discs (which is brilliant to have), a garbage can, and then a variety of smaller special blocks. One piece to definitely grab is the little Lego faucet/tap piece - it's really lovely, and I think it's a holdover from the old Homemaker sets of the 1970s. Most of the pieces are white, so prospective buyers will need to be careful of discolouration, blemishes, scratches, dirt and the like on white coloured pieces.

The only parts you may have trouble with is the Pizzeria logo on the top of the shop - it's a sticker across multiple parts and I had to buy that from overseas. It's getting to be a bit of a harder piece to find these days, and I think it really helps to tie the set together so be sure to grab it.

One thing to note is that the pizza truck is meant to have stickers on the sides, going across multiple parts (at least five small pieces per side). My set didn't have this, which was a given as I bought the set piece by piece online, and I don't know if I'd say it's worth adding the stickers. It would probably add to the visual look of the little pizza truck, but the sticker is going across so many pieces as to be almost a hindrance.

Playability

I've always been a big fan of sets that depict more down-tempo situations - not everything needs to be cops and robbers, firefighters or mining crews. Sometimes fun is eating pizza and being outside enjoying the sun.

The oven actually opens up and you've got room for two pizzas! There's a brown wooden oar to be used as a pizza paddle, which is a very cute touch. There's a little Lego faucet for water, a glass for the sweaty busy pizza chef to drink from (or maybe it holds sauce?) and a garbage can for burnt pizzas to be swept into.

You could roleplay a day in the life of a pizza chef, serving customers, getting pizzas out the door for the hungry customers in the delivery truck. You could mash this up with other Lego sets of the era, like Paradisa, to create a little bustling town full of shops, or go for something completely oddball with sets like Ninjago coming down here to eat pizza and hang out. This could be a pizzeria, a movie set, a trendy restaurant - it's really up to your imagination and it's one of the great things about some of these older sets is that they leave room for your imagination to come in and fill in the blanks.

I actually built this set on a green 8x16 baseplate to make it fit in better with my other Town baseplates, and you can easily modify this set, add it somewhere else, or plop it down on a larger baseplate if you need. I even put light grey tiles under the shop itself to depict a floor, and it was incredibly easy to do so!

Value for Money

I don't know exactly what I paid for this set, but I think with all the pieces ordered from overseas in bulk, it ended up being about $30-60 Australian dollars, with the cost of the stickered piece factored in. This set is easily worth the price of admission by virtue of its simplicity and retro charm and if you are someone with a large collection of Lego pieces lying around, you could possibly make this with your parts bin.

Final Thoughts

This was, without a doubt, the easiest set I've ever reviewed because it's so...effortlessly good. It's really honestly a brilliant set, those multiple five-star reviews aren't kidding. It perfectly represents the old era of Lego, where it was quite uncomplicated in its building techniques and the sets, while simple, left room for the imagination. There's nothing bad for me to say about this set, nothing I could critique it on aside from stickers across multiple parts, and that's a problem lots of old Lego sets have.

If you're looking for a set to add a splash of colour to a desk, a shelf or an assortment of Lego sets, this is definitely one to pick up!

The artwork of the box it's really nice even thought it's not awesomely detailed it works just fine.

The piece count for the original price for this set it great I think, maybe now it's quite expensive but it's okay.

The pieces that you find are really good, you get 5 pizzas, a sunroof, a red colored ramp piece, a garbage can, a transparent cup, a plate, a printed "umbrella" , a printed pizzeria sign (the little one in the truck) and a sink.

The building is simple, easy and fast, the pizzeria has a great size and a great view from any angle, the best part for me it's the delivery truck, it's such a nice, funny, useful and great build for a truck, it accommodates one minifigure and in the back probably 4 pizzas if you crush them in there or normally 2.

The minifigures are a chef, a lady and the delivery guy, the chef is a nice old styled smiley face with a mustache and a nice hat, the lady has a nice torso print (although it doesn't have a back, but it was common, the odd thing here is that the torso is yellow so...) and a nice hair piece, pretty common, but useful fo those who (like me) don't have too much; the last minifigure is the delivery guy, which has an old styled worker suit in blue and the smiley face (which is my favorite face of all time for civilians).

Playability is good for delivery and cooking in the furnace but it just grows a bit tedious over time (for me)

I don't have complaints for this set so I highly recommend buying it if the opportunity is shown.

Where do I begin... For its size, this set is just about perfect. The look, the function, the playability... I could not even count the amount of hours I have spent with this.

Putting it together is so much fun, that you will want to disassemble it just to reassemble it again!

I love the chef and his little hat. And the lady with her strapless top.Not sure why they made her look "seductive," but I remember I would flip the arms around on the torso to get a "topless" torso. My, do I have a filthy mind.

The oar is used as a pizza paddle... That is just precious! The oven actually has room for the pizza, and so does the truck! The garbage can is great too. And the umbrella, which turned yellow if you twirled it.

The best thing about this set is the... PIZZA! Seriously, at that time, food was a rarity in the lego world, and pizza is awesome. Pizza for your lego citizens... AMAZING!

This set is really attractive to look at and integrate with your other builds but it is beautiful even just by itself.

The only drawback is the "pizzeria" sign sticker... Those are 3 bricks you will never use again. But it's not a big deal.

If you can get your hands on this, I highly recommend it! Definitely a marvel to behold.

This is one of the the classic Town sets. An orignal design that was well-designed and featured bespoke printed Pizza bricks. Whatever you town has, most buildings were petrol stations or police stations or train stations. This was one of those few food outlets and is a very compact building with character.

The Building

The Pizzeria is well-designed and makes the most of the small baseplate. The kitchen has a tap brick on the rear supporting column and opposite a small shelf for mugs (or wine goblets if you want to subsitute them). The counter is spacious and is the right height for the figures. A till might have been a nice addition, but again you could easily add this. I love the inclusion of the tap brick, it would have been so easy not to have included it at all, the fact the designers did indicates the seriousness they had when planning this set. In fact, it was the only tap brick I ever came across. The kitchen is also high enough for the chef to stand up in with his tall hat. The most important part of the Pizzeria is the oven. The small tower to the left holds a two-shelf pizza oven with a large black door and the front of the tower features a cooling vent with a yellow vent brick. The Pizza's slid in nicely, but getting them out can bit akward. The chef has an oar, which in this set is cleverly used as a baking tool. There is a small gap in the right wall which leads outside, yes there is not enough room for the door or for the figure to stand in the doorway, but its a small set! Outside is a dustbin, another neat extra given it could so eaisly have been omitted, and a table with a fancy Italian umbrella. The roof is sloped and above that is a big sign, with a fancy Pizzeria sticker. The tower also looks very Italian and is topped off with corner roof tiles and a small chimney for the oven. The tower has a small window, its not a functional space but adds to the character, a bit like a folly. A compact building that just crams in so much given the small space available.

The Vehicle

This Pizzeria is a take-away too! The delivery van is a smart, urban vehicle. Only seven studs long it has no windows but is tall and easily seats the driver on a 2x2 yellow brick, it has a grey steering wheel and a clip hook to carry a hand-held radio. The sills have two white grills too. The front light bar has two round yellow headlights and a red vent grill. The rear is the cool part with a window frame with shutters forming the doors of the pizza storage with shelves for two pizzas, but four can be slid in there. The sides have Pizzeria stickers, the roof having a sunroof and another smaller Pizzeria sign. The van is a classic and looks Italian. It's just a cute urban van.

The Minifigures

The chef has grey legs, chef uniform body, a moustached face and a chef's hat. The lady customer has red legs, a casual red top with yellow arms, a head with lipstick and long eyelashes and a black hair with a ponytail. The van driver is the classic blue dungaree and blue legs chap with a white cap. You get five Pizzas with the set along with the oar and one mug. The driver has a radio.

Personal Developments

This set could not really be bettered. Yes, the tower is decorative only, there is no till but the oar and dustbin and tap are nice touches and the Pizzas are a brillant idea. I just love the Italian flair of this set and it will liven up any street. It's so different from anything else and is small enough to fit anywhere. The van is also different from any other vehicle of that era, lacking doors but trading length for height. I actually built several more of these small delivery vans in other colours. As long as you have spare small chassis bricks and window frames with shutters its easy enough to copy as mail vans etc. A true all-round success and a classic set and something a bit different too.

I spotted this set on peeron.com in 2007. I was young at the time, and didn't know much about bricklink. Being young, I put in on my Christmas List. I was very sad when I didn't get it. The next year, I tried again. Still no set. It was the 3rd time, I believe, I got it. It was used, but deconstructed, in a plastic baggie. I was so happy! It now stands next to my 675 Snack Bar (view my review).

The playability is great, there is a table out side(sadly it is in a tight space and nothing can be put on it due to the umbrella, but the umbrella of course can be removed) and a customer to go along with it. The pizza truck is one of my favorie LEGO cars ever, it has a compartment in the back to hold pizzas, a phone, a sunroof for easily placing the driver, but the seat, potrayed as a 2x2 brick, falls off a lot.

For the pizzeria, there is a cook, of course. There is a small table sticking outside of the wall behind the counter, where you can place two cups (though the set only comes with one), an oven, where all the pizzas provided can fit in(but I wouldn't recommend putting all of them in, there could be a lego fire!), a paddle piece hung on the side, used for taking the pizzas out of the oven, a RARE sink piece, a trash can, and a chiminey.

This set is a must have, a LEGO Legends diserved. You could get on eBay, Bricklink, or Amazon, but it is not available in LEGO shop at home or a LEGO shop. 5/5 stars, a great set!