City

Donut Shop Opening

A whole street corner in a box, and that giant rolling donut is the whole point.

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 60233 · 2019

Pieces790

Minifigs10

Year2019

Set number60233

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The verdict

This is one of those City sets that punches well above what you expect from the aisle.

You get a two-shop street corner, five vehicles, ten minifigures, and a giant donut that literally rolls off the roof when you hit the trigger. It is not a modular building and it is not trying to be, but for open play and for filling out a city layout it is genuinely lovely. Grab it on a sale if you can, because full price is the one place it stumbles.

Best for: City layout builders and families who want a big playable street scene

The full review

What it is

The thing that got me about this set is how much street it gives you. You are not building one shop, you are building a whole corner of a city: a donut shop with a working coffee machine and an ATM, a little toy shop with balloons and shelves, and then a fleet of vehicles to bring the scene to life. There is a taxi, a police motorbike, a crane truck with a proper extending boom, a news van with an opening roof and a satellite dish, and my favorite of the bunch, a brand new coffee cargo bike that rides around delivering cups. Then perched on top of the shop is the giant donut, and when you pull the trigger it rolls right off the roof. It is silly and it made me grin, and I think that is exactly the point.

The catch

I want to be honest about the money, because that is where this one wobbles. At the original 89.99 asking price, 790 pieces is not the most generous ratio LEGO has ever offered, and a few reviewers rightly flagged it as a wait-for-a-sale set. There are little rough edges too. The taxi is genuinely the runt of the litter, too skinny with the wheels poking out and no doors to speak of, and it turns up right at the start in the first bag, so the build opens on its weakest note. I hit a couple of instruction errors along the way (one said a single gray slope where the picture clearly showed two), and the giant donut itself, while it looks great in photos, breaks apart pretty easily and shows some ugly studs on one inner face. None of it is a dealbreaker, but you should know it is not flawless.

Who it's for

So who is this for. If you build City layouts and you want a shop front that slots neatly into a streetscape with a pile of vehicles and characters to populate it, this is a strong buy, especially discounted. Families will get a huge amount of play out of it, because between five vehicles, ten figures, and a launching donut there is always something happening. If you are chasing a detailed modular-style facade with a fully finished interior and clever engineering, this is not that set and you will feel the price. But taken for what it actually is, a big cheerful playable street corner, it earns its keep.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is a relaxed, satisfying afternoon rather than a technical challenge. The vehicles come together fast and each one has a little personality, and the shop buildings are quick without feeling empty. The interiors surprised me, honestly. There is more detail packed into the donut shop than the box lets on, with the coffee machine and the counter setup giving it a real sense of place. The crane truck is the closest thing to a fiddly moment, with its extending boom, platform, and fold-out stabilizer legs, but it is the good kind of fiddly where the finished function actually works.

The standout part is the coffee cargo bike, which was brand new for June 2019 and is the piece most people remember from this set. The new whirly hat accessory debuted here too. Beyond the molds, the real treasure is the printing and the accessory haul: five donuts, five muffins, four cookies, five coffee cups, a teddy bear, a toy guitar, a skateboard, a fishing net, a camera, a microphone and a crowbar for the crook. That is a genuinely useful bin of city clutter. And with ten minifigures, eight of them exclusive to this set including Duke DeTain, the figure value alone (roughly 28 dollars on the aftermarket) does a lot to justify the box.

Fun facts

01The coffee cargo bike and the whirly hat accessory were both brand new molds introduced with this set in June 2019.
02Eight of the ten minifigures are exclusive to this set, including City police hero Duke DeTain.
03The set released in 2019 and retired in December 2020, and it scored a 92 on Brick Insights, ranking it inside the top five percent of all rated sets.
04The giant donut on the roof is launched by a trigger and rolls away, and the ATM on the side of the shop hides its own launch function.