I have been working on turning the café side of the #10255 LEGO Creator Assembly Square into a pizzeria, which got me looking for inspirations, and of course lots of pizza pieces. It is interesting to note that LEGO recently released several pizzeria related sets, which are definitely great resources for both design ideas and useful pieces. So let’s talk about pizza today!
There are quite a few sets that feature a pizzeria, or at least a pizza oven – not necessarily as the main model, but as part of the set. Good examples of some of the larger sets are the #60026 LEGO City Town Square and #60031 LEGO City Corner from 2013, and the #41058 LEGO Friends Heartlake Shopping Mall from 2014.
The first set with a full on pizzeria was the #6350 LEGO Town Pizza To Go set from 1994 (see first image above). This set was released in 2002 as #10036 LEGO Town Pizza To Go. It features an Italian style pizzeria with white walls, arched window, a pizza oven, and a pizza delivery truck. I would say that this is still one of the best pizzeria sets to date. The building has such a simple but pleasant design.
Not much pizza related stuff was happening again until 2014, when we got the Pizza Delivery Man in LEGO Collectible Minifigure Series 12. One of my favorite LEGO photographers, JéRôMe, got him to do some stunts in the picture above. He comes with a printed pizza box, new style printed pizza, a red baseball cap with pizza logo, and a green shirt with red and white stripes on the collar. If you want to make a pizzeria, this minifig is going to be one of your best resources for useful accessories.
While it is a small set, it is worth mentioning the #41092 LEGO Friends Stephanie’s Pizzeria from 2015, because it includes a nice little pizza oven, a red scooter, and other useful pieces that could easily be incorporated into a larger layout.
After all those years of no pizza or little pizza, in 2017 we got flooded with pizza related sets. First of all, there is the #60150 LEGO City Pizza Van, which is already a fan favorite. Then there is the #41311 LEGO Friends Heartlake Pizzeria with beautiful styling that could easily fit into any LEGO City setup with little modification needed. I really like the pizza oven and the rest of the interior as well. Both of these sets include not just regular round pizzas, but pizza slices as well.
The #70910 LEGO Batman Movie Scarecrow Delivery is another important set for pizza connoisseurs, because it comes with a new 2×2 printed tile pizza box, and a slarge pizza delivery scooter, plus a number of pizza pieces – including a monster pizza.
And while the newly released #10834 LEGO DUPLO Pizzeria is meant for younger LEGO fans, it does include three large printed pizza pieces that could be added to regular LEGO sets as giant pizzas, or as signs for a pizza restaurants.
Speaking of decorated pieces, there are a number of stickers with pizzeria logos and decorations for pizza boxes, but the most unique ones are definitely the printed elements. As I mentioned previously, there are two printed pizza boxes; one that comes with the Collectible Minifigure, and the other in The LEGO Batman Movie set. And there are five different pizza pieces (seven if you also count the DUPLO pizzas pictured below).
The first printed 2×2 round tile pizza piece was released in 1994. The tile itself is yellow, and it has two versions. The original version has an x at the bottom to create connection points, and the second version was released in 2011 with a round stud-holder as the connection point. This is important as you can make the pizza pieces connect to a surface in different ways.
The new style pizza also has two versions. The one that comes with the Collectible Minifigure is a pepperoni pizza printed on a medium-nougat color tile with x at the bottom. The second version is also a pepperoni pizza with some precut lines. It is printed on a tan 2×2 round tile. Then there is a small pizza slice piece with a veggie pizza decoration that is printed on a quarter round tile. It only comes in the LEGO City Pizza Van and the LEGO Friends Pizzeria so far, but hopefully it will be added to more set in the future.
The most important part of a pizzeria is the pizza oven, pizza pieces, pizza boxes, and pizzeria workers. Once you have those figured out, you can convert pretty much any building to a pizzeria, or even build one from scratch. If you need some starter sets for your project, you can find the currently available pizza-themed sets at the Online LEGO Shop.
And if you would like to get more inspiration for design, I recommend searching on flickr for images. One of my favorites is this beautiful LEGO Modular Building style Italian pizza restaurant by Dutch-builder (you can see more photos by clicking on his name).
What do you think? Have you ever tried building a LEGO pizzeria? Or do you have any favorites from other builders? How do you like the LEGO pizza related sets released so far? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below!
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